Ozymandias Principle

The least important and/or most embarrassing part of a computer system is the part which will inevitably outlive all the others.

From the poem 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelly

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear - "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Wouldn't a better principle (more related to the poem) be that "all systems will eventually decay"? After all, Ozymandias (a fictional King, though likely a reference to Ramses of Egypt) was probably a rather powerful fellow in his time--all that remains of his rule and his realm is a broken statue.

The principle is all systems fade away, except the most embarrassing horrible parts (think XMODEM). They decay slowly, leaving sad monuments to themselves.

Now really this Ozymandias guy, could we not find him a better name ? I mean geeks remember concepts like DontRepeatYourself, design patterns like AbstractFactory, etc, even people's names have found their way into concepts: see LawOfDemeter, or the nice theorems of Pythagora, Ceva, Ptolemy. But Ozymandias ? Give me a break. One can only imagine naming this guy in a discussion and reading on the face of everybody: "this guy is full of it".

The bard has chosen such a stupid name with the purpose to achieve a stylistic effect. It makes sense in the context of a rusty old piece of poetry, but as the name of a "principle" the name of Ozymandias is completely oblique.

Why yes. The stupid name of the principle will withstand the tests of time, while all else crumbles to dust around it. Utterly appropriately wrong name there, hum?

CategoryOldSoftware