Stovepipe system

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In engineering and computing, "stovepipe system" is a pejorative term for a system that has the potential to share data or functionality with other systems but which does not do so. The term evokes the image of stovepipes rising above buildings, each functioning individually. A simple example of a stovepipe system is one that implements its own user IDs and passwords, instead of relying on a common user ID and password shared with other systems.

Engineering applied science

Engineering is the application of knowledge in the form of science, mathematics, and empirical evidence, to the innovation, design, construction, operation and maintenance of structures, machines, materials, devices, systems, processes, and organizations. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied mathematics, applied science, and types of application. See glossary of engineering.

Computing activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computers

Computing is any activity that uses computers. It includes developing hardware and software, and using computers to manage and process information, communicate and entertain. Computing is a critically important, integral component of modern industrial technology. Major computing disciplines include computer engineering, software engineering, computer science, information systems, and information technology.

A system is a group of interacting or interrelated entities that form a unified whole. A system is delineated by its spatial and temporal boundaries, surrounded and influenced by its environment, described by its structure and purpose and expressed in its functioning.

Stovepipes are

A stovepipe system is generally considered an example of an anti-pattern, particularly found in legacy systems. This is due to the lack of code reuse, and resulting software brittleness due to potentially general functions only being used on limited input.

An anti-pattern is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive. The term, coined in 1995 by Andrew Koenig, was inspired by a book, Design Patterns, which highlights a number of design patterns in software development that its authors considered to be highly reliable and effective.

Legacy system

In computing, a legacy system is an old method, technology, computer system, or application program, "of, relating to, or being a previous or outdated computer system," yet still in use. Often referencing a system as "legacy" means that it paved the way for the standards that would follow it. This can also imply that the system is out of date or in need of replacement.

Code reuse, also called software reuse, is the use of existing software, or software knowledge, to build new software, following the reusability principles.

However, in certain cases stovepipe systems are considered appropriate, due to benefits from vertical integration and avoiding dependency hell. [1] For example, the Microsoft Excel team has avoided dependencies and even maintained its own C compiler, which helped it to ship on time, have high-quality code, and generate small, cross-platform code. [1]

Vertical integration When a company owns its supply chain

In microeconomics and management, vertical integration is an arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is owned by that company. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or (market-specific) service, and the products combine to satisfy a common need. It is contrasted with horizontal integration, wherein a company produces several items which are related to one another. Vertical integration has also described management styles that bring large portions of the supply chain not only under a common ownership, but also into one corporation.

Dependency hell is a colloquial term for the frustration of some software users who have installed software packages which have dependencies on specific versions of other software packages.

Microsoft Excel spreadsheet editor, part of Microsoft Office

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications. It has been a very widely applied spreadsheet for these platforms, especially since version 5 in 1993, and it has replaced Lotus 1-2-3 as the industry standard for spreadsheets. Excel forms part of Microsoft Office.

See also

Not invented here (NIH) is a stance adopted by social, corporate, or institutional cultures that avoid using or buying already existing products, research, standards, or knowledge because of their external origins and costs, such as royalties. Research illustrates a strong bias against ideas from the outside.

To reinvent the wheel is to duplicate a basic method that has already previously been created or optimized by others.

A stovepipe organization has a structure which largely or entirely restricts the flow of information within the organisation to up-down through lines of control, inhibiting or preventing cross-organisational communication. Many traditional, large organisations have, or risk falling into having, a stovepipe pattern. Intelligence organisations may deliberately adopt a stovepipe pattern so that a breach or compromise in one area cannot easily spread to others. A famous example of this is Bletchley Park where people working in one hut would not know what the people in any other hut did.

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Software non-tangible executable component of a computer

Computer software, or simply software, is a collection of data or computer instructions that tell the computer how to work. This is in contrast to physical hardware, from which the system is built and actually performs the work. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all information processed by computer systems, programs and data. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and related non-executable data, such as online documentation or digital media. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be realistically used on its own.

Free software software licensed to preserve user freedoms

Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price: users—individually or in cooperation with computer programmers—are free to do what they want with their copies of a free software regardless of how much is paid to obtain the program. Computer programs are deemed free insofar as they give users ultimate control over the first, thereby allowing them to control what their devices are programmed to do.

Malware is any software intentionally designed to cause damage to a computer, server, client, or computer network. Malware does the damage after it is implanted or introduced in some way into a target's computer and can take the form of executable code, scripts, active content, and other software. The code is described as computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, spyware, adware, and scareware, among other terms. Malware has a malicious intent, acting against the interest of the computer user—and so does not include software that causes unintentional harm due to some deficiency, which is typically described as a software bug.

Package manager software tools for handling software packages

A package manager or package management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer's operating system in a consistent manner.

Defensive programming is a form of defensive design intended to ensure the continuing function of a piece of software under unforeseen circumstances. Defensive programming practices are often used where high availability, safety or security is needed.

A passphrase is a sequence of words or other text used to control access to a computer system, program or data. A passphrase is similar to a password in usage, but is generally longer for added security. Passphrases are often used to control both access to, and operation of, cryptographic programs and systems, especially those that derive an encryption key from a passphrase. The origin of the term is by analogy with password. The modern concept of passphrases is believed to have been invented by Sigmund N. Porter in 1982.

Portage (software) Linux package management system

Portage is a package management system originally created for and used by Gentoo Linux and also by Chrome OS, Sabayon, and Funtoo Linux among others. Portage is based on the concept of ports collections. Gentoo is sometimes referred to as a meta-distribution due to the extreme flexibility of Portage, which makes it operating-system-independent. The Gentoo/Alt project is concerned with using Portage to manage other operating systems, such as BSDs, macOS and Solaris. The most notable of these implementations is the Gentoo/FreeBSD project.

A backdoor is a method, often secret, of bypassing normal authentication or encryption in a computer system, a product, or an embedded device, or its embodiment, e.g. as part of a cryptosystem, an algorithm, a chipset, or a "homunculus computer" —a tiny computer-within-a-computer. Backdoors are often used for securing remote access to a computer, or obtaining access to plaintext in cryptographic systems.

In computing, a data source name is a string that has an associated data structure used to describe a connection to a data source. Most commonly used in connection with ODBC, DSNs also exist for JDBC and for other data access mechanisms. The term often overlaps with "connection string". Most systems do not make a distinction between DSNs or connection strings and the term can often be used interchangeably.

Code injection is the exploitation of a computer bug that is caused by processing invalid data. Injection is used by an attacker to introduce code into a vulnerable computer program and change the course of execution. The result of successful code injection can be disastrous, for example by allowing computer worms to propagate.

A one-time password (OTP), also known as one-time pin, is a password that is valid for only one login session or transaction, on a computer system or other digital device. OTPs avoid a number of shortcomings that are associated with traditional (static) password-based authentication; a number of implementations also incorporate two-factor authentication by ensuring that the one-time password requires access to something a person has as well as something a person knows.

In software engineering, inversion of control (IoC) is a programming principle. IoC inverts the flow control as compared to traditional control flow. In IoC, custom-written portions of a computer program receive the flow of control from a generic framework. A software architecture with this design inverts control as compared to traditional procedural programming: in traditional programming, the custom code that expresses the purpose of the program calls into reusable libraries to take care of generic tasks, but with inversion of control, it is the framework that calls into the custom, or task-specific, code.

In parallel computing, an embarrassingly parallel workload or problem is one where little or no effort is needed to separate the problem into a number of parallel tasks. This is often the case where there is little or no dependency or need for communication between those parallel tasks, or for results between them.

In software development, distributed version control is a form of version control where the complete codebase - including its full history - is mirrored on every developer's computer. This allows branching and merging to be managed automatically, increases speeds of most operations, improves the ability to work offline, and does not rely on a single location for backups.

The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics were created in 1992 by the Computer Ethics Institute. The commandments were introduced in the paper "In Pursuit of a 'Ten Commandments' for Computer Ethics" by Ramon C. Barquin as a means to create "a set of standards to guide and instruct people in the ethical use of computers." They follow the Internet Advisory Board's memo on ethics from 1987. The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics copies the archaic style of the Ten Commandments from the King James Bible.

In computing, the web browsing history is the list of web pages a user has visited recently—and associated data such as page title and time of visit—which is recorded by web browser software as standard for a certain period of time. Web browser software does this in order to provide the user with a back button and a history list to go back to pages they have visited previously as well as displaying visited links rather than relying on the user to remember where they have been on the web.

References

  1. 1 2 Joel on Software, "In Defense of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome", by Joel Spolsky, October 14, 2001


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