Re: Free Optimizing Ada Compiler

[hlavaty@CRVAX.Sri.Com]

In article <1991May9.175544.11853@beaver.cs.washington.edu>, pattis@june.cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis) writes...
>In article <9105091625.AA11977@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> koehnema@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Harry Koehnemann) writes:
> 
>In fact, I will even go to the extreme here and say that it is often BETTER in
>beginning classes to not have instantaneous compilation. When compilation is
>TOO FAST, it can seduce students into repeatedly reusing the compiler in place
>of actually thinking about what they are doing. I often see reasonably written
>programs turned into garbage by students incrementally changing them without
>thinking about what they are doing. I am not saying all beginning students
>succumb to this temptation, but it is my experience that many do.
> 
>Rich Pattis
>
I found this comment very interesting.  This observation tends to support a
software management technique advocated by Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister of the
Atlantic Systems Guild.  Their approach during a development is to *take 
away* compiler rights from the developer, thereby forcing a programmer to think
through their code approach.  When they think they are done, they give the code
to someone else who compiles it and returns it if it fails.  I believe this idea
originated as a response to fault metrics compiled by T.C. Jones (Capers Jones?)
showing that the more errors you find, the more errors their are.  By removing
compiler rights, the programmer is incentivized to reduce the number of errors
right from the start.
While this topic is really turning into software engineering, the fact that you
have experience confirming this (even if they are students - habits are habits)
was interesting.  Most managers find the idea of removing compiler rights as 
something akin to insanity.
Anyway, the point made by Mr Pattis with regards to reducing overall compiler
usage is a good one, for it appears the Mr Pattis is not the only person to
have picked up on this phenemenon of "compiler abusage".

Jim Hlavaty
hlavaty@crvax.sri.com