[eurasiantiger]

> 6. Knowledge work has unique concerns, unrelated to those of a factory or construction site.

> 7. … You cannot improve a system by tinkering with the parts.

This last statement seems to apply more to factories or construction sites, not software engineering. Obviously systems can be improved by tinkering with parts that are shared and actively used by multiple systems.

[dgb23]

Yeah he seems to be talking about social systems rather than software. But it's wrong in both cases. In software systems we have refactoring and bug fixing, in social systems we have organizational frameworks and roles that abstract away from the people. Both of those things have their limitations and problems, but I wouldn't go as far as the author in saying they are basically useless.

[yourenotsmart]

From the article:

> You cannot change anything without changing everything. You cannot improve a system by tinkering with the parts.

Those sentences seem to outright contradict each other...