The cathedral dome of Santa Maria del Fiore (raised 1446–1461) is one of the most spectacular constructions in Florence. It was architected by Filippo Brunelleschi, who also led the entire project until his death.
1446 there were no guidelines or best practices for a construction Brunelleschi proposed. Also, the mathematical toolset and material science were not mature enough to provide precise calculations and final values for the Dome parameters.
- To be honest, in 1446, we still believed, the earth is the center of the universe, and powdered gemstone is good medicine (according to Copernicus’s letters)
To win the competition with Florence architects and complete the project, Brunelleschi did his own design including calculations and drawings, and supported it with a scale model. He also designed and constructed dedicated machines, to support the building process (based on Aristotle works).
I don’t know, what was more important, the model or the personal design of Brunelleschi as they are lost over the centuries. What we know, is when his major opponent and competitor Ghiberti tried to take control of the construction process, Brunelleschi has taken them for a while. This caused the takeover attempt to fall, and let Brunelleschi undisturbed control over the project until his death. It shows they played a significant role in the construction process.
In the end, Brunelleschi finished his work (without the roof’s top), and we – almost 500 years later – can still admire his work.
OK, nice story, what does it mean for Information technology?
At first, we should imagine, how we would build the Dome in 2023. We would probably take advantage of material science, allowing us to benefit from the technical characteristics of chosen construction materials including compression, elasticity, etc.
Second, we would use numerical modeling involving mechanics rules to determine the forces distribution and calculate the proper building dimensions.
- This – as we can expect – would prove that Brunelleschi was a genius (GURU), as he – without the mathematical and mechanical toolset – estimated the proper parameters within a very small tolerance range.
In 2023 there would be a significantly smaller risk of project failure, as we can calculate the construction parameters instead of assuming them.
Now we get back to IT Engineering and try to remind how we ensure, the designed IT architecture, will meet the functional and non-functional criteria i.e. throughput or responsiveness. Currently, we can’t calculate it, we need a model and a benchmark, to be sure, the required parameters can be achieved. (alternatively, we may ask a GURU – he will tell us without the benchmark 😊).
Obviously, there is a variety of technologies and architecture patterns and the calculation models would be very complex. It’s true, but it does apply to construction engineering as well. In the last 500 years of construction engineering, there has been huge progress in research, formalizing, standardizing, and recording parameters of construction artifacts.
IT engineering has this work still not accomplished.
- Compared to construction engineering, the IT needs for a model and a benchmark positions our current maturity in XV Century!
As unfair and provocative as this judgment would be, the comparison of the IT engineering domain with other engineering domains is rather poor. And – predicting the future of IT – it will be one of the future development drivers – to calculate (and not estimate) the impact of IT change.
Comparing the IT age (of about 70 years) with the age of construction engineering (about 7000 years) and approximating in a linear way (😊) we should reach in IT the maturity grade of current construction engineering in about 5 years. This will probably not happen, because the IT development was non-linear and financial drivers are currently not strong enough. But they will probably increase with complexity of future IT-systems. Maybe it is a subject for one of the next posts ?