Principles of Computer System Mis-Design

I worked on this project briefly (a day or so) around May/June 1997,
and have not gotten back to it since.

A couple of people have asked about it, and now re-reading it myself, it seems not completely without value. So I am making it accessible. (But it doesn't seem worth indexing.)

These are just some working notes, not yet even a draft.

The exercise is named for, and is currently largely based on, a paper by Butler Lampson, "Hints for Computer System Design".

The tongue-in-cheek rational for this exercise is this:

Tired of trying to persuade folks to design systems well, I have given up and changed sides. Civilization is advancing too fast. Order 10^10 peoples' potential productivity needs to be dissipated. This requires the aggressive misdesign of systems. Here are some suggestions on how to contribute to the effort.

More seriously, I was wondering if it would be easier to teach systems by bad example. It is so much easier to find them. And because folks constantly encounter misdesign, the relevance becomes clear, and there is opportunity for observation and reflection.

The "content": work.html , notes.txt

History:
  2002-Apr-11   Changed link as www.tiac.net is evacuated.
  1997.Dec.23   Created this page.
  1997.May/Jun  Underlying work done.  Only a few hours worth.