Blog post on why there is no such thing as a "root cause" in the context of complex systems failure.

In this post, Donella Meadows summarizes the general “systems wisdom” she obtained from modeling complex systems.

Easy to remember site with Richard Cook's essay on »How Complex Systems Fail«.

»Complexity has to live somewhere. If you are lucky, it lives in well-defined places. … If you're unlucky and you just tried to pretend complexity could be avoided altogether, it has no place to go in this world. But it still doesn't stop existing.«

1991 Turing Award Lecture

MCAS relied on only one of two sensors that measured the plane’s angle of attack.

Key Takeaways:

• Complexity is the greatest impediment to a software company’s growth and profitability.
• Development costs increase exponentially with respect to the complexity of your code base.
• The choice between speed and simplicity is a false dichotomy. Investment in simplicity is investment in speed.
• Few executives recognize the cost of complexity because they don’t understand the nature of the products they’re selling.
• Software is a product like no other — a hybrid product-service with a very unique warranty.