From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,ed45459060d00f87 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Alan Hohn Subject: Re: Programming: Art or Science? [was: MN] Date: 1999/02/16 Message-ID: <36C9DB23.F1520DF7@mediaone.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 445072366 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <79scn2$k04@drn.newsguy.com> <36c25c45.0@news.pacifier.com> <79v9f4$fe$1@remarq.com> <79vd9b$45k$1@remarQ.com> <7a1eir$6oe$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36C8A705.597D432A@planet8.tds-eagan.lmco.com> <7aablt$qqt@drn.newsguy.com> <36C99BDF.BF0FA38F@mediaone.net> <7acbfk$c0t@drn.newsguy.com> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Lockheed Martin TDS Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-02-16T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: kevin@nospamworld.com wrote: > Well, offcourse the software will be bad if the design is bad. (do you need > to read a book to know that?) > I think you miss the main focus, which is that a bad design will prevent a good programmer from writing good software, and that our good programmer cannot always do his own design. The climate is one in which more than one person is working on the software, and so the continuity of skill and style from person to person is not guaranteed and must be controlled by engineering practices. You really need to read Brooks' book; even the first chapter would open your eyes. He quite agrees with you that for small projects, a single good programmer can do all the things you mention, but for large projects which require an immense number of personnel, the interaction between them is different in kind, not just different in magnitude, and requires the kind of, yes, engineering, that I mentioned previously. Your programmer who performs all aspects of software development is neither practical for such projects or indicative of the industry. Let me use the example of Linux to make my point. The architect, Linus Torvalds, certainly did not do everything from architecture through testing. He did the architecture, a lot of design, and the barest coding possible (and almost no testing). His genius comes from being able to create an architecture which would accept change. His ability to architect would transfer to any language, on any platform. > So, get off this 'coder' vs. 'designer' mentality. This is only created by > those who have little clue about what software is all about. (Like authors > of books on 'software engineering' who could not write a 2-lines program > if their live depended on it) Brooks was in charge of the OS/360 project; perhaps you've heard of it. I'm sure you strongly believe that bad management can make a large software project fail; isn't it a logical corollary that good management can also have an impact? I'm quite distressed at your use of bluster in place of reasoned argument. Alan