> "Software systems tend not to be complicated, not complex, until you start getting into distributed systems."
these days so much software is "distributed systems".
For example, at a level of scale, Kubernetes start having emergent behavior.
On the other hand, it doesn’t take much to produce a complex system. The Boids simulation is a complex adaptive system in the form of a flock, yet each member of the flock concurrently follows only three basic rules.
I think complexity is a byword for 'unintentionally complicated' here.
The use of “complexity” in terms of systems theory in comparison to “complicated”, is often misunderstood.
I also agree that it’s a really good framework for evaluating problems and then making decisions on potential solutions because each has its own set of approaches.
Small nick pick. It’s “Cynefin” not “Cynefine”. The word is Welsh (Cymraeg). Roughly pronounced ke-ne-fin.
And, the Cynefine Framework defines “complexity” a bit differently than the intuitive way it’s often used.
The simple domain is a single dimension. The complicated domain is a system of factors. I think when most people say “complex”, they are really talking about what Cynefine labels as “complicated”.
The Cynefine complex domain is not so easily solved or reduced. It has emergent behaviors. The act of measuring tends to perturb the system. No single solution will ever solve something in the Cynefine complex domain, because the complex system will shift behavior, making solutions that worked before start working against it.
Examples are ecosystems and economies. Software systems tend not to be complicated, not complex, until you start getting into distributed systems.
One of the key insights of Cynefine is understanding that each of the domains has its own way of solving things and that often times, people use solutions and methods from one domain to solve problems characterized by a different domain.
You don’t solve problems in the complicated domain with methods from the simple domain. And you don’t solve problems in the complex domain with methods that work for complicated domains.