book

Thinking in Promises

by Mark Burgess

June 2015

Beginner

192 pages

5h 5m

English

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

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Promise EngineeringFrom Commands to PromisesWhy Is a Promise Better than a Command?Autonomy Leads to Greater CertaintyThe Observer Is Always RightCulture and PsychologyNonlocality of ObligationsIsn’t That Quasi-Science?Is Promise Theory Really a Theory?The Main ConceptsHow Much Certainty Do You Need?A Quick User GuideJust Make It HappenAn Exercise
An Imposition Too FarReformulating Your World into PromisesProxies for Human AgencyWhat Are the Agencies of Promises?What Issues Do We Make Promises About?What Things Can Be Promised?What Things Can’t Be Promised?The Lifecycle of PromisesKeeping PromisesCooperation: The Polarity of Give and TakeHow Much Does a Promise Binding Count?Promises and Trust Are SymbioticPromoting CertaintySome Exercises
What We Mean by AssessmentKinds of Promise AssessmentRelativity: Many Worlds, Branches, and Their ObserversRelativity and Levels of PerceptionInferred Promises: Emergent BehaviourHow Promises Define Agent-Perceived RolesThe Economics of Promise Value: Beneficial OutcomesHuman ReliabilityThe Eye of the BeholderSome Exercises
The Laws of Conditional PromisingLocal Quenching of ConditionalsAssisted PromisesConditional Causation and DependenciesCircular Conditional Bindings: The Deadlock CarouselThe Curse of Conditions, Safety ValvesOther Circular PromisesLogic and Reasoning: The Limitations of Branching and Linear ThinkingSome Exercises
Engineering Autonomous AgentsPromisees, Stakeholders, and Trading PromisesBroken PromisesWhat Are the Prerequisites for Cooperation?Who Is Responsible for Keeping Promises?Mutual Bindings and Equilibrium of AgreementIncompatible Promises: Conflicts of IntentCooperating for Availability and the Redundancy ConundrumAgreement as Promises: Consensus of IntentContractual AgreementContracts and SigningAgreement in GroupsPromoting Cooperation by Incentive: Beneficial OutcomeThe Stability of Cooperation: What Axelrod SaidThe Need to Be Needed: Reinterpreting an Innate Incentive?Avoiding Conflicts of InterestEmergent Phenomena as Collective Equilibria: Forming SuperagentsGuiding the Outcome of Cooperation When It Is EmergentStability of Intent: Erratic Behaviour?When Being Not of One Mind Is an AdvantageHuman Error or Misplaced Intent?Organization: Centralization Versus DecentralizationFocused Interventions or Sweeping Policies?Societies and Functional RolesRelationships: What Dunbar SaidSome Exercises
Reasoning with CauseComponentization: Divide and Build!What Do We Mean by Components?What Systemic Promises Should Components Keep?Can Agents Themselves Have Components? (Superagents)Component Design and RolesComponents Need to Be AssembledFragile Promises in Component DesignReusability of ComponentsInterchangeability of ComponentsCompatibility of ComponentsBackward CompatibilityUpgrading and Regression Testing of ComponentsDesigning Promises for a MarketLaw of the Lowest Common DenominatorImposing Requirements: False ExpectationsComponent Choices That You Can’t Go Back OnThe Art of VersioningNames and Identifiers for “Branding” Component PromisesNaming Promisee Usage (-) Rather than Function (+)The Cost of ModularitySome Exercises
The Client-Server ModelResponsibility for Service DeliveryDispatchers and Queues for Service on DemandDelivering Service Through Intermediaries or ProxiesFraming Promises as State or ActionDelivery Chains by ImpositionDelivery Chains with PromisesFormality Helps the Medicine Go DownChains of IntermediariesEnd-to-End IntegrityTransformation Chains or Assembly LinesContinuity of Delivery and IntentThe Versioning Problem AgainAvoiding Conflicting Promises by Branching into Separate WorldsAvoiding Many Worlds’ Branches by Converging on TargetBackwards Compatibility Means Continuity of IntentAssessing a Service by Promising to Use It (Testing)Some Exercises
How Information Becomes KnowledgeKnowledge: The Mystery CatPassing Information AroundCategories Are Roles Made into Many World BranchesSuperagent Aggregation (Expialidocious)Thinking in Straight LinesKnowledge EngineeringEquilibrium and Common KnowledgeIntegrity of Information Through IntermediariesRelativity of InformationPromising Consistency Across Multiple Agents and CAPA Is for AvailabilityC Is for ConsistencyP Is for Partition ToleranceThe World Is My Database, I Shall Not WantSome Exercises

What Is a System?The Myth of System and UserSystemic PromisesWho Intends Systemic Promises?Breaking Down the Systemic Promises for Real AgenciesWhy Do Systems Succeed or Fail in Keeping Promises?Complexity, Separation, and ModularityThe Collapse of Complex SystemsThrough the Lens of Promises

Content preview from Thinking in Promises

Letter to the Reader

Dear reader, this book is an introduction to what has come to be known as Promise Theory. It is addressed from a mostly nontechnical perspective. It is not a book that gives management advice, nor is it even about technical recipes; its goal is to help you to think without prejudice about cooperative systems of any kind.

We live in a marketing age where we believe that brands mean something, so today you’ll read about Complexity Theory and Promise Theory and Theory of Constraints, and any number of other theories. Many believe that these ideas are all separate, competing sports teams, from which we are allowed to choose only one. Add to that Lean, Agile, Six Sigma, and any number of other management philosophies, and you are practically forced into primitive tribalism.

Promise Theory is not a management ideology; it is an engineering framework for coping with uncertainty in information systems. It is a set of principles, based on formal reasoning, without the over-constrained ideas of logic. Some people (not mathematicians) might call it mathematical because it has formal rule- or constraint-based approaches.¹ Others might say it is heuristic. These are subjective assessments, which are unimportant. In fact, Promise Theory has a lot in common with physics, being a mixture of both, but who cares about categories?

One of the reasons I started Promise Theory was to escape from the tyranny of fuzzy words that float around in management-speak. Words are verbose ...