The long and winding road: Accidents and tinkering in software standardization

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16112

Keywords:

software standards, software development, programming language, complexity, evolution of technology

Abstract

Software is based on universal principles but not its development. Relating software to hardware is never automatic or easy. Attempts to optimize software production and drastically reduce their costs (like in hardware) have been very restricted. Instead, highly-skilled and experienced individuals are ultimately responsible for project success. The long and convoluted path towards useful and reliable software is often plagued by idiosyncratic accidents and emergent complexity. It was expected that software standardisation would remove these sources of unwanted diversity by aiming at controllable development processes, universal programming languages, and toolkits of reusable software components. However, limited adoption of development standards suggests that we still do not understand why software is so difficult to produce. Software standardisation has been limited by our poor understanding of humans’ role at the origin of technological diversity.

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Author Biography

Sergi Valverde, Institute of Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC, Spain).

Expert in complex systems with a PhD in Applied Physics and researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC), Barcelona (Spain), where he leads the Evolution of Technology Lab (ETL). His research group is a pioneer in the study of major evolutionary transitions by comparing biological and artificial systems. His multidisciplinary research integrates various areas of knowledge, from network theory to theoretical ecology and the computational simulation of evolutionary processes. He is a board member for the Catalan Network for the Study of Complex Systems (complexitat.cat).

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Published

2021-01-21

How to Cite

Valverde, S. (2021). The long and winding road: Accidents and tinkering in software standardization. Metode Science Studies Journal, (11), 91–97. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16112
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Issue

Science's structures (2021)

Section

Standards. The building blocks of complexity

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