[kictanet] Can Software Engineering Principles resolve Political Stalemate?

[John Walubengo]

Amazing similarity b/w Computer Software and Political 
Deadlocks....

I was struck by the similarities between what is
transpiring in our political arena and what happens in
software engineering (in particular Operating System
Software design) Wikepedia defines a deadlock as  
<<...a situation wherein two or more competing actions are
waiting for the other to finish, and thus neither ever
does. It is often seen in a paradox like 'the chicken or
the egg'>>. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlocks.

The same wikipedia page goes on to say that in Operating
Systems, a deadlock occurs only when all of the following
four conditions prevail:
   1. Mutual Exclusion condition: a resource is either
assigned to one process or it is available
   2. Hold and Wait condition: processes already holding
resources may request new resources
   3. No Pre-emption condition: only a process holding a
resource may release it
   4. Circular Wait condition: two or more processes form a
circular chain where each process waits for a resource that
the next process in the chain holds.  

This transposes perfectly onto our political deadlock as
described below (I just replaced the items 'Resource' with
Ministry and 'Process' with Politician to understand
prevailing conditions within the political context). So
rephrasing the above:- Political deadlocks will occur when
all of the following four conditions prevail:

1. Mutual Exclusion:-a Ministry can only be occupied by one
Politician.  The occupant automatically excludes the
others.
2. Hold and Wait: -a Politician/Party holding some
ministries may want to request for more.
3. No Preemption:-only the Politician holding the ministry
can release it. (No external force can pre-empt or release
that ministry).
4. Circular Wait: Politician-1 may release a Ministry 'A' -
BUT only after recieving a Ministry 'B' from the other
Politician-2. Unfortunately Politician-2 cannot realease
Ministry 'B' because (s)he is awaiting for Politician-1 to
release his Ministry 'A' first.

So how do computers or Operating systems deal or resolve
deadlocks?  Three approaches have existed since 1960s and
are described on the same wikipedia page. Basically they
include: 
Option1: Deadlock Prevention, 
Option 2: Deadlock Avoidance and 
Option 3: Deadlock Detection.

In more simplistic terms, Deadlock Prevention simply aims
at ensuring that one or more of the above four conditions
for deadlocks DO NOT hold.  E.g most Operating Systems
would therefore be pre-emptive (thus addressing condition
3) by retaining and exercising the right to terminate the
offending processes (Politicians?). Operating Systems are
careful not to allow one process to hoard resources at the
expense of the other Processes.

In the Deadlock Avoidance approach, Operating Systems try
to make sure that they do not enter into a state that can
lead to deadlocks.  Basically, the competing processes are
expected to declare in advance their maximum request levels
for resources.  Thereafter the Operating System polices
their subsequent request granting or denying them
accordingly. (All cards must be on the table in advance?)

Finally, in Deadlock Detection, the Operating System may
opt for the lazier but more expensive option- institute
mechanisms that inform it that a deadlock has occured e.g.
when the computer freezes (or the country?).  Thereafter,
it would need a manual reboot. Switch off and restart the
machine, losing all your data (life?) in the process.  I
just hope we are not headed for Option 3.

walu.



--- Michuki Mwangi <michuki at swiftkenya.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> Willem de Groot wrote:
> > 
> > * Remove some of the URLs in the footer
> > * Run the mailinglist on another server to see whether
> my.co.ke IPs
> > are somehow blacklisted/penalized
> > 
> > 
> 
> The my.co.ke mx IP is clean and not blacklisted unless
> someone wants to 
> verify that with other spots.
> 
> Am monitoring the emails still and so far i dont seem to
> any landing 
> into the spam folder since the very first one.
> 
> I have no problem with my normal mail and using a mail
> client which has 
> flags to read spamassassain spam counts and flag as spam.
> No problems 
> with that so far. Considering that it goes through
> spamassassin and a 
> barracuda box :)
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Michuki
> _______________________________________________
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