[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] <offtopic> The Fallacy of Reification
http://hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=5270&t=organizations You'll hate this. It is nonetheless true. What it doesn't point out is the extreme danger of superstition in systems that amplify results. I pointed it out in the Enterprise Engineering papers at GE in the 80s but it is a lesson that has to be relearned often. At that time, we knew the web was coming and the dangers of stuffing faulty beliefs into real time systems that are fast to grant but slow to revoke were obvious. Now that we are building very large networked security systems, the aphorism of "trust but verify" should be nailed to the heads of our managers, engineers and customers. For all the hype of the We Web, Web 2.0, SecondLives, Who Is Who, the web is just an amplifier. Don't put an amplifier where all you need is a filter. Engineers understood that long ago, but in today's hot money-gottaBeAHero environment, fishbrained engineers continue to feed their children to the machine. No, I'm not optimistic. The insistence on engineering over philosophy means the technology is getting faster and cheaper, but the humans are learning little. If the web really is a 'social system' (it isn't; it amplifies one), it is incredibly primitive. Len Bullard Senior Technical Consultant, Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I Division) Intergraph Corporation (NASDAQ: INGR) P.O. Box 6695, Huntsville, AL 35824 USA P 1.256.730.8140 F (256) 730-8006 len.bullard@i..., www.intergraph.com
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