Re: Ariane 5 Failure - Summary Report

["Stephen D. House" <house@ro.com>]

Byron B. Kauffman wrote:
> I guess we're going to have to trade in our 'software engineering' hats
> for 'software scavenger/cut-and-paste/rewrite-the-interfaces' hats
> (otherwise known as HACKING).
> 
> Just my opinion, of course.

For a rocket, you might be right.  BUT...

One of the advantages of "visual" programming languages is that they are 
a language which ties together components.  The software crises will not 
be reduced until productivity goes up.  Productivity isn't the number of 
lines of code you can code a month, its how much functionality you can 
give you your customer per month.  Unless software houses part building 
products by putting together subsystems instead of subprograms, no gains 
will be made.

COTS is one way.  In house components; ones which are understood, domain 
specific, consistent with other components, etc.; are better solutions. 
 I don't think that companies are doing enough with reuse.  They'd 
rather buy a magic bullet from somebody else than dig through their own 
attic for something.