No Silver Bullet-Hong

The so-called silver bullet is a powerful tool to kill the werewolf. Of course, there is no werewolf in reality. But in reality there is a silver bullet. The significance is similar to the best way to kill a werewolf. In reality, a werewolf can be a tricky project or an impossible task. Silver bullet is a method or technical means to solve these problems.

When we do software, we often hope that there is a technology or method that can improve the productivity of software engineering. But is there such a thing?

In a classic paper on software engineering published in 1987 by Fred Brooks, the father of IBM's large-scale computers, "No Silver Bullet, emphasize the complexity of the software, so that the real silver bullet does not exist; the so-called "no silver bullet" means that no technology or method can increase the productivity of software engineering by ten times in ten years.

The author uses many examples to explain the correctness of this recognition in many aspects. Despite the strong response and a lot of controversy, we can't ignore the most important point that this article wants to emphasize despite the complicated demonstration process: a really good project requires convenient development technology, however, no technology can completely discard human existence. The projects we do cannot be done once and for all. Good projects must be continuously updated to maintain vitality. Among them, our talents are the subject, and it is hard to imagine that if we leave people, what is the vitality of a software. The important fact that we cannot forget is that software is created to make it easier for us. Without human beings, it loses the value and motivation of existence.

This also reflects the fact from another perspective that a good programmer can not be trained in three or two days, but needs to grow up a little bit in the longer and more complex engineering experience.