 Trouble with time, Am I reading this right? |
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 Oct 10 2005, 02:17 PM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 338 Joined: 17-September 04 From: Pueblo Sector of Denver Member No.: 6,672  |
I've been reading the extended test times, and I have come up with a strange problem:
Creating an OS, no matter the rating, is measured in years, since successes no longer reduce time, doesn't this mean that even the most gifted team in the world working on a rating 1 OS, is going to take a whole year? If I'm reading this wrong I hope someone will point it out. |
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Oct 10 2005, 03:09 PM
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#2
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
That is the downside to specifying a larger Interval instead of a higher Threshhold for an Extended Test, yes.
EDIT: BTW they could 1/2 the time by making a Rush Job of it. |
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Oct 10 2005, 03:12 PM
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#3
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 238 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,569 |
In theory, you could double the threshold and halve the interval, without affecting the difficulty couldn't you? This would give you finer granularity and allow for the Super Team to make an OS in a reasonable time?
Calypso |
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Oct 10 2005, 03:43 PM
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#4
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 338 Joined: 17-September 04 From: Pueblo Sector of Denver Member No.: 6,672 |
In SR3 on of the PC's in the group had a "Super coder" character, essentially this character's best quality was the ability to produce code fast. In SR4 the PC's kinda refuse to code, when they realise it could be a six year endevor to produce a useable program.
Actually, come to think of it, don't most of the extended tests have no ability to shrink? |
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Oct 10 2005, 04:08 PM
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#5
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Target Group: Members Posts: 26 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,679 |
Yeah there seems to be something wrong with those times. It would take 2 or more months to put together a rtg 6 encyrption program. In real life, the majority of work putting it together is the encryption formula, which is public domain. Putting it into software is relatively simple, certainly not 2 months work.
Decryption would take much longer because of trying to circumvent in several different ways, but these holes are consistently patched but that could be simulated by SoTA, ie software decays at 1 point/month. So requires less time to write but more time upkeep. I would think that software should be easier make but require much more maintenance. This is especially true when programming consists of mainly of re-using current code but upgrading it to new requirements. |
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Oct 10 2005, 04:29 PM
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#6
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Also with more people you're very likely of netting a Critical Success, which you can rule divides into the base time or somesuch. Of course that requires truly massive dice pools being thrown at the problem to reliably program something quickly.
This is actually one of the bigger objections Ellery had to SR4 back when the static TN was first announced, back in May I believe? |
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Oct 10 2005, 04:40 PM
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#7
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 261 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Massachusetts Member No.: 2,115 |
In real life, writing non-trivial software takes a team of people a reasonable amount of time. The concept of a single person sitting down and writing a useful and complete software program in a couple weeks is mostly a myth.
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Oct 10 2005, 04:43 PM
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#8
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
Sure, but you can gloss over that easily by declaring the tools & APIs available in 2070 are superspiffy. |
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Oct 10 2005, 05:29 PM
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#9
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Define "useful and complete"? ~J |
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Oct 10 2005, 05:32 PM
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#10
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
question is, what is trivial in SR? sure one can trow together a nice simple editor in something equivalent to visual basic in a matter of hours. but isnt mostly tools like that incorporated into the os these days? or maybe leased of the net as needed? how long did it take linus torvalds to write the first release of the linux kernel? how long have it taken microsoft to write the next windows version? how many people are working on the cups printing system used by most linux distros? what can be defined as a trivial software to write?
while encryption is mostly public domain in real life (baring patents and military stuff), it dont have to be so in SR. it may well be that encryption software from the megacorps, atleast the stuff available on the open market, are black box compiled code. sure you may say that ensuring that encryption works need peer review. but do they have to care about that? maybe some high profile encryption labs can see how the stuff works under a NDA so that they can put up their support of the product or not. rember that SR is ruled by corps. if its bad or potentialy bad for the bottom line then its not done. and releasing encryption algorithms so that others can use them is not good for the bottom line. this is why shadowrunners have a job market. lets say we kill the patent system and instead extend copyright to cover anything, even physical products. so if megacorp A release a lease a product and then megacorp B release one that is suspisiously similar then its shadowrunners to find evidence and the corp court to make a ruling. |
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Oct 10 2005, 05:36 PM
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#11
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
that's true, if you're talking about developing new software, eg something no one's ever done before. if you're just making a new version of something others have already done, a few weeks is a suitable amount of time. |
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Oct 10 2005, 05:54 PM
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#12
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,086 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 364 |
And that glossing can be matted back down by pointing out that OS design in 2070 would by its very nature be insanely complex, and therefore, the advantage of having a superspiffy development suite means you get to write your OS in years instead of centuries. |
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Oct 10 2005, 05:58 PM
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#13
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
i dont think i could reproduce ms office in a matter of weeks even tho its been done before :P lets just say that for every feature needed the complexity of the code squares... |
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Oct 10 2005, 06:07 PM
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#14
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 261 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Massachusetts Member No.: 2,115 |
Another important point is that the rules in the book describe work by a single programmer, not a team. The origional poster referred to operating systems, and I can't come up with a single example of a single programmer writing a sufficiently non-trivial operating system to get a rating of 1 on a 1-6 scale since Minix - and that came on 5.25" floppy disks.
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Oct 10 2005, 07:00 PM
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#15
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 238 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,569 |
So you throw a hundred programmers at the problem and it's completed in 1/100th the time, right??? :rotfl: Calypso EDIT: *secret handshake* "Mythical Man Month" |
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Oct 10 2005, 07:01 PM
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#16
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
I hear ya. If the RAW say years, then I'd say that's clearly the case. They could have said building new programs is approximately as difficult as narrating what you want to a Star Trek holodeck (now there's a toolset for you). But they didn't, so here we are. |
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Oct 10 2005, 07:03 PM
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#17
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 112 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,896 |
No, but at the same point you should be able to break it up into smaller pieces that can be worked on in parallel. I would bet that most software projects of reasonable size can be broken into parallel steps. |
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Oct 10 2005, 07:05 PM
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#18
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
I say this is a programmer myself: HA! |
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Oct 10 2005, 07:07 PM
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#19
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
bingo, there is a reason why you have both a compiler and a linker ;) |
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Oct 10 2005, 07:11 PM
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#20
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
the proverb "more chefs, bigger mess" comes to mind :silly: |
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Oct 10 2005, 07:17 PM
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#21
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 238 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,569 |
Sort of. As you parallelize a task, the coordination required to do so begins to eat up the gains from the parallelization. I forget how the graph looks exactly, but at some point, adding people causes the task to take longer. Calypso |
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Oct 10 2005, 07:19 PM
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#22
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
depends. are you going to try to reproduce the |
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Oct 10 2005, 07:32 PM
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#23
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
Brook's Law, for those who wish to Google for more info. The graph looks something like plotting an inverse exponent.
As far as parallel tasking goes, it's insightful management when you can compartmentalize subroutines cleanly into different simultaneous projects. It's a friggin' miracle when the Systems Designer(s) can hook all of those different subroutines together successfully since they evolved under (sometimes radically) different conditions. Yuck. I've started to sound like one of those guys who insist they're martial arts experts and the rules should work differently because blah blah I'm a lethal weapon blah. |
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Oct 10 2005, 08:30 PM
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#24
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 338 Joined: 17-September 04 From: Pueblo Sector of Denver Member No.: 6,672 |
I figured most hacker apps wouldn't be profesonally-polished, gumdrop-interfaced, idiot-proof code. I mean, does my IC really need a help file? I think a lot of things like that could be made in a week, given you where not doing proof of concept.
I wonder if you could be alloud to allocate hits to time instead of success, or divide time by the number of hits over success, of course that really only works on your last roll (so that second one is out) I want my shadow-coder PC back |
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Oct 10 2005, 09:28 PM
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#25
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
writing the manual may take time. but writing the exploit code may allso take time. if your only writing for known exploits then you risk it being patched on 90%+ targets before your done (if they bother at all) so its a bit of a race.
write for unknown exploits and you have to find it first, the hard way :P thing is, why bother running the shadows when one can sitt on ones ass and code all day for those that do? and why should they do the running when they can do the same? in the end, file the times under game balance. |
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