Self-Designing Software

In computing, we have a great diversity of tools at our disposal to perform any given task. We know many different sorting algorithms, cache eviction policies, hash functions, compression algorithms, scheduling approaches, and so on. And at a higher level, we have many ways to combine these alternatives into suitable systems. Many trainees in software engineering will have learned these alternatives and have a set of heuristics they can draw on to make reasonable design choices for each new problem. Selecting the right set of tools for a new task is based on a mixture of engineering experience to narrow the initial design options, with deployment-based feedback to fine-tune (or sometimes entirely redesign) the solution.