No Silver Bullet, Article Review Example

Brooks argue that software creation is a complex task and, thus, productivity gains that are normal in other industries such as computer hardware would never happen in software production. This is because other products and technologies benefit from standardization while all software are unique and innovative in nature, thus, follow unpredictable production path. In addition, software has to be compatible with other software made by different people and when new versions of other software come, the redesign is not a simple modification. Similarly, software is used by different kinds of people who may invent new uses and new hardware devices come that can run the software, thus, later changes to the software are common. There have come various developments such as artificial intelligence, object-oriented programming, and graphical programming but all have their shortcomings. For example, graphical programming doesn’t work because it is very difficult to represent software structure in a graphical or any other visual form.

The author suggests that building software is not always the best solution in terms of time and cost and sometimes vendor software is a better alternative.Vendor software are not only immediately available but are also built to accommodate the needs of various kinds of users. A second solution may be the development of tools for rapid prototyping of systems because it is very difficult to identify all the functions software must perform in the planning phase and even clients do not know exactly what they want. Thus, prototype systems could be built that can perform main tasks and new functionalities can be added to prototype software system on as-needed basis. Third alternative is incremental development in which the software is built in a simple form and then more complex functionalities are added. This approach goes a great distance to motivate the programmers because every little progress pushes them to put greater efforts due to the hope of success.

Brooks does have a valid argument because software development may be viewed as the production of customized goods that are always slow because they are built to client’s specifications and no two goods are exactly the same. The hardware development could be seen as a mass-produced good where each unit is same and, thus, the production process can be standardized to achieve production efficiencies. Each software is a brand new product and thus, it cannot take advantage of the learning from previous software developments. In addition, another unique aspect of software creation is that its ultimate form is never known in advance. Even the client for whom software is being built or the company which is building software for its own use, cannot describe every functionality required in advance.

The best example of software could be movies which are being made from over a century now yet their development times have not improved much. This is because most functions involved in movie development cannot be automated and each movie is made in an entirely different way. Thus, instead of focusing on the process themselves, a better solution to speed up the software development time may be to efficiently manage the software engineers and improve interaction among them.