Unsolved problems in Software Engineering

Question

In a recent question on unsolved issues in Computer Science, one answer was, probably correctly, criticised for not strictly being a CS problem, but a software engineering one.

In software engineering we have best practices, patterns, methodologies and templates, perhaps because it's quite a woolly area - probably more art than science - everyone has their own way of solving their problems, whether big or little (we've all got our utility library, right?)

So what are the big unsolved problems in Software Engineering? And why are they still unsolved, what's stopping us from having nailed-on solutions?

Answer 1

Estimation of schedules.

It is hard almost by definition: if you do your job well, then you don't repeat yourself. Consequently, you can use past projects as a reference only to a limited extent.

Answer 2

This might be controversial, but I see patterns as an unsolved problem.

They exist for a great purpose - to distill well-trodden idioms into best practices, to avoid reinventing the wheel, to turn the intangible into tangible techniques we can communicate easily.

BUT

• There are so many developers who hide behind patterns. Just because you are using a pattern doesn't mean you're using the right one, and there can't be a pattern for absolutely everything.

• Architectural patterns like MVC are far too fuzzy to be lumped in with design patterns (like Builder). Everyone seems to understand these higher level patterns slightly differently. Even if there is a definition somewhere, unless this is commonly understood, they lose much of their communicative value.

• Patterns are not Lego. They are not an excuse for not understanding "first principles". I would argue that you shouldn't use a pattern until you've "derived" it yourself. That's the only way you'll understand why it should be a pattern, and make the right choice about when to use it.

Answer 3

There's the classic...

Object-Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science

Answer 4

The true problem with software engineering is the absolute lack of metrics, there is no consensus on how to measure anything. And for me that is what keeps software engineering from being Software Engineering.

Answer 5

Problem Specification. Absolutely, this is the one thing that pretty much makes Software Engineering what it is; the process of finding out actually what problem the client actually needs to have solved (and how to implement the subproblems that each of those create) is actually what Software Engineering is about. It remains an unsolved "problem" in addition to being the definition of the field at least partially because the real issue is mostly about getting clients to properly describe what they actually need, as opposed to what they think they need.

Yes, this isn't a "programming" problem. But it IS the big, outstanding issue that always remains in Software Engineering. This is not a "how" problem, but a "what" problem; those are always the big ones.

Answer 6

Identity.

Even with OpenID, ADS, and dozens of other fiefdoms, there still isn't an easy, extensible, distributed, privacy-enabled way to easily maintain identity between machines and web sites.

Part of the issue stems from the fact each person is not a single identity, they are a collection of identities: family, job, public, hobby, private, alter-ego, consumer, anonymous, pseudonyms, friend, physical location (anonymous presence), etc.

A truly "solved" identity problem would allow me to be "all things to all people." In other words, I would appear to each person/service as I am to them, and my other identities would be isolated from their view. Meanwhile, I would be able to manage all of my identities in a centralized manner, with inheritance and cascaded properties, and do all of this on a decentralized, distributed platform.

Specific example: I have an AD login at work, logins on three computers at home, user accounts on dozens of sites, and multiple accounts on some social networking sites (such as MySpace) only because I want to keep my personal and hobby (photography) contacts and published information separate.

Answer 7

Well, the most famous of course is: P = NP ?

There's a $1,000,000 (US) prize for solving it, so get cracking! :-)

Answer 8

Databases under source control.

How to ensure that schema changes, data updates, permissions and so on are accurately reflected. In particular, the deltas between versions.

The database pro version of Visual Studio/TFS seems to have some good tools but having a Subversion-like view on the database would be a great thing.

Answer 9

Theory and practice decoupling in software engineering but not in mature engineering branches. This is caused by the lack of science. Civil engineering becomes mature in the early ninteeth century when science (abstract underanding the phenomenon) and technology (tool use) are fully merged into a common culture. The science of software engineering does not exist today. What we have is technology only. Therefore software engineering is guesswork rather than scientific work.

Answer 10

I think it is storing and searching symbols as text. My opinion is that such a format that can store and search mathematical symbols like text will help many fields of software industry such as AI.