From: Jeffrey Carter <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com>
Subject: Re: License to Steal
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 16:01:19 GMT
Date: 2001-04-24T16:01:19+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <3AE5A34F.B89C8D5F@boeing.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 200104240531.WAA01552@well.com
Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>
> A very interesting thesis project for one of your grad
> students, Richard, would be to study what it is that
> makes a programming language able to grab mindshare
> despite being essentially a hacker's toy like C++,
> TCL, Perl, or Python, to name ones familiar to me,
> while for conceptually adequate other programming
> languages, like Ada, even offering to force them down
> the programmer's throats at gunpoint fails.
This is fairly obvious. Anyone can learn to program. I call such people
"coders". In my experience, only 2% of coders are capable of becoming
software engineers. (I don't mean only 2% have been trained as software
engineers; I mean, no matter how much training and experience they get,
only 2% of coders will become software engineers. This has something to
do with how people's brains are wired; only weirdoes can be software
engineers. Normal people can only be coders.) Ada is a software
engineer's language. Ada's features to support software engineering make
no sense to coders. They just get in the way. On the other hand, in my
experience at least 90% of software engineers who know Ada like Ada; its
features reflect the way they think.
The problem is not languages, it's who we allow to create software.
There's no easy way to determine if someone is a coder or part of that
2%. If we could restrict professional software development to software
engineers, Ada would be much more popular.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2001-04-24 16:01 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 31+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2001-04-19 18:06 License to Steal "Riehle, Richard"
2001-04-19 19:31 ` Ted Dennison
2001-04-24 5:31 ` Kent Paul Dolan
2001-04-24 8:03 ` David Starner
2001-04-25 6:28 ` Florian Weimer
2001-04-24 8:54 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
2001-04-25 3:09 ` Stephen J. Bevan
2001-04-24 16:01 ` Jeffrey Carter [this message]
2001-04-27 7:44 ` Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) Peter Richtmyer
2001-04-27 11:10 ` Kevin Rigotti
2001-04-27 13:42 ` Ada, Software Engineering and Ted Dennison
2001-04-27 14:14 ` Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) Peter Richtmyer
2001-04-27 17:55 ` Jeffrey Carter
2001-04-27 17:52 ` Jeffrey Carter
2001-04-27 21:35 ` David Starner
2001-04-30 13:50 ` Ada, Software Engineering and Ted Dennison
2001-04-30 15:40 ` Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) Jeffrey Carter
2001-04-27 17:31 ` Jeffrey Carter
2001-04-28 3:25 ` Peter Richtmyer
2001-04-28 5:37 ` CORRECTION: Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" Peter Richtmyer
2001-04-30 13:49 ` Ada, Software Engineering and Ted Dennison
2001-04-30 15:58 ` Jeffrey Carter
2001-04-30 18:18 ` Ted Dennison
2001-05-01 1:33 ` Weird and way off topic (was Re: Ada, Software Engineering...) Peter Richtmyer
2001-05-01 16:25 ` License to Steal Stephen Leake
2001-05-02 15:26 ` Ted Dennison
2001-05-03 17:37 ` Alejandro R. Mosteo
2001-04-24 22:20 ` Marin David Condic
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2001-05-03 18:15 Beard, Frank
2001-05-03 20:57 ` Larry Kilgallen
2001-05-06 11:09 ` Alejandro R. Mosteo
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