From the tarpit
From the outset a caveat that I'm a dinosaur, and a fossilized tarpit dweller, but it seems some things are fundamental.
I believe the roots of the lack of understanding noted go back nearly half a century now. The are the result of disastrously misguided perceptions on the part of US Secretary of Defense MacNamara. In defiance of all reason--and despite overwhelming evidence that they were total nonsense--they not only took hold, but have since become rampant global infections.
The idea that functions like project management, systems engineering, reliability, and security are disciplines that can be learned and practiced independent of first hand knowledge and experience of the systems being managed, engineered, made reliable, or secured AND of the user's capabilities, requirements, and operating environment is patent nonsense.
The Salesmen on the Rock Island Line in the Music Man have it right. At the end of the day, "Ya gotta know the territory. . ." If ya don't bridges fall down, road systems and urban areas flood when the monsoon hits, airliners disappear into thin air, and hackers waltz into our IT systems and make off with our credit card numbers and knickers with complete impunity.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
