JavaZone 2011 - Complexity Theory and Software Development
Some systems are too large to be understood entirely by any one human mind. They are composed of a diverse array of individual components capable of interacting with each other and adapting to a changing environment. As systems, they produce behavior that differs in kind from the behavior of their components. Complexity Theory is an emerging discipline that seeks to describe such phenomena previously encountered in biology, sociology, economics, and other disciplines.
Beyond new ways of looking at ant colonies, fashion trends, and national economies, complexity theory promises powerful insights to software development. The Internet—perhaps the most valuable piece of computing infrastructure of the present day—may fit the description of a complex system. Large corporate organizations in which developers are employed have complex characteristics. In this session, we'll explore what makes a complex system, what advantages complexity has to offer us, and how to harness these in the systems we build.
Tim Berglund
Tim is a full-stack generalist and passionate teacher who loves coding, presenting, and working with people. He is founder and principal software developer at the August Technology Group, a technology consulting firm focused on the JVM. He is a speaker internationally and on the No Fluff Just Stuff tour in the United States, and is co-president of the Denver Open Source User Group. He has recently been exploring non-relational data stores, continuous deployment, and how software architecture should resemble an ant colony. He lives in Littleton with the wife of his youth and their three children.