Dan Bricklin's Web Site

Today's world and Societal Infrastructure Software

The world is different now than it was even just a decade or two ago. In more and more cases, there are no paper records. People expect all information to be available at all times and for new uses, just as they expect to drive the latest vehicle over an old bridge, or fill a new high-tech water bottle from an old well's pump. Applications need to have access to all of the records, not just summaries or the most recent. Computers are involved in, or even control, all aspects of the running society, business, and much of our lives. What were once only bricks, pipes, and wires, now include silicon chips, disk drives, and software. The recent acquisition and operating cost and other advantages of computer-controlled systems over the manual, mechanical, or electrical designs of the past century and millennia have caused this switch.

I will call this software that forms a basis on which society and individuals build and run their lives 'Societal Infrastructure Software'. This is the software that keeps our societal records, controls and monitors our physical infrastructure (from traffic lights to generating plants), and directly provides necessary non-physical aspects of society such as connectivity.

We need to start thinking about software in a way more like how we think about building bridges, dams, and sewers. What we build must last for generations without total rebuilding. This requires new thinking and new ways of organizing development. This is especially important for governments of all sizes as well as for established, ongoing businesses and institutions.

There is so much to be built and maintained. The number of applications for software is endless and continue to grow with every advance in hardware for sensors, actuators, communications, storage, and speed. Outages and switchovers are very disruptive. Having every part of society need to be upgraded on a yearly or even tri-yearly basis is not feasible. Imagine if every traffic light and city hall record of deeds and permits needed to be upgraded or "patched" like today's browsers or email programs. Needing every application to have a self-sustaining company with long-term management is not practical. How many of the software companies of 20 years ago are still around and maintaining their original products?

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The needs of Societal Infrastructure Software

Let us look at the needs for societal infrastructure software. They include the following:

• Meet the functional requirements of the task.
  
• Robustness and long-term stability and security.
  
• Transparency to determine when changes are needed and that undesired functions are not being performed.
  
• Verifiable trustworthiness of all three of the above.
  
• Ease and low cost of training for effective use.
  
• Ease and low cost of maintenance.
  
• Minimization of maintenance.
  
• Ease and low cost of modification.
  
• Ease of replacement.
  
• Compatibility and ease of integration with other applications.
  
• Long-term availability of individuals able to train, maintain, modify, determine need for changes, etc.
  

The structure and culture of a typical prepackaged software company is not attuned to the needs of societal infrastructure software. The "ongoing business entity" and "new version" mentality downplay the value of the needs of societal infrastructure software and are sometimes at odds.

By contrast, custom software development can be tuned better to the needs of societal infrastructure software. The mentality is more around the one-time project leaving an ongoing result, and the cost structures are sometimes such that low maintenance is encouraged. The drivers of custom software are often the eventual users themselves, paying upfront for development.

Some of the problems with custom development with regards to societal infrastructure software are the inability to spread the development and maintenance costs among a large number of customers and the narrow focus on the current requirements of the particular customer and their current stage of need (which often may change in ways visible to other customers but not yet to them).

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