On July 16, 2012, Prof. Dr. Alan Kay will give a talk about "Complications vs. Complexity in Computing" in the context of the SFB 901 colloquium.
Abstract:
If we look at a huge software system of more than 100,000,000 lines of code and think that the problem couldn't possibly be that complicated, then we are encountering the difference between "complication" (something we humans do and perceive) and "complexity" (something that is intrinsic to situations and problems). In a perfect world we would like the "complications" to be similar to the actual "complexity" (maybe within a factor of two), and we certainly would not like the factors of 100s and 1000s difference between the two that is found in so many systems made by vendors and companies. The differences for understanding, creation, reformulation and costs are qualitative. This talk shows examples of how the complexity of large systems can be separated from the complications to result in tiny understandable and changeable systems.