Re: [gentoo-user] OT: Is EVMS dead?

[Eric S. Johansson]

Dirk Heinrichs wrote:

>> heap.  It's a classic example of "second system syndrome" as defined by
>> "the mythical Man month".
>
> Errh, what?

rtfb  it was published in 1972, is still in print and the first five chapters 
are as relevant today as they were when it was first published.  It explains why 
software projects fail.  I think it's pretty sad when failings in an industry 
recognized 35 years ago are still happening today.

Brooks says write one system to throw away because you are going to anyway.  The 
first time you implement, you don't understand the problem and you frequently 
leave out functionality or implement things in a clumsy or incorrect way.  This 
next implementation you, in theory, understand the problem and can do a better 
job which leads us to...

second system syndrome.  when you implement a system for the second time you 
think you have the problem fully understood, add lots of features and 
capabilities and end up with a disaster on your hands because you over estimated 
your capabilities.

which is really Fred Brooks's way of saying write two system to throw away 
because you're going to anyway.

a great example of this is Microsoft.  They rarely get anything right until the 
third version (implementation).  Other examples are easily found if you just look.

>
>> It's overly complicated, poorly documented, and
>> has a terrible user interface that only a geek would even consider using.
>
> What's wrong with the excelent user guide on the project's site? Which of the
> three UIs exactly do you think is horrible?

could never get the containers nesting right.  If the instructions on how to use 
an LVM can't be explained on a postcard, you don't understand how to communicate 
with your users or the implementation is really off.  I spent lots of time on 
the mailing list talking to developers about various problems and a consistent 
problem was communicating the terminology to users.  Simple things like how do 
you set up your physical disk was not documented well enough to be useful.

the GUI tools did not lead you to a correct solution.  It was just a bunch of 
menu items that you could choose a random.  Hell, tinyca does a better job at 
guiding you in creating a small certificates hierarchy which is a task of 
similar complexity.

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