Build Intelligence

[From the critique of Yet Another SCM Manifesto]

I am trying hard to get something out of this discussion with Frank (I hope it would be with others as well), and as often in such cases, feel trapped between disagreement and misunderstanding. One fascinating aspect of the discussion, as I see it, is it recursive nature. We somehow fail at building intelligence about building intelligence, which I claimed is the essence of what SCM should aim at. We fail at reproducing in each other's brain a sequence of steps which would achieve a (partial) agreement about some semantics.

In this situation, what I call SCM stands as a "tool". Using it guides me to interpret the divergences as consequences of implicit assumptions which thus prove to have broken down, and to try to wind back to to some more basic, more primitive, agreement, on top of which to express the divergence with the goal of reducing them.

Here, speaking of intelligent tools shows up (at least in the context of current technology) as a catastrophic dilution of what is meant by intelligence when one talks of somebody's intelligence. Sure SCM will achieve nothing valuable if the intelligence it builds into an organisation suffers of a similar dilution of meaning.

-- MarcGirod - 17 Aug 2003