* License to Steal @ 2001-04-19 18:06 "Riehle, Richard" 2001-04-19 19:31 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: "Riehle, Richard" @ 2001-04-19 18:06 UTC (permalink / raw) I was recounting the history of Ada for one of my classes at Naval Postgraduate School today. At one point, I came to fact that the original Ada policy had been abrogated. Then I pointed out that, since the abrogation of that policy, I see people using all kinds of new languages. I predicted that over the next few years, we will be right back to the situation that triggered the need for Ada in the first place: a proliferation of programming languages that only a few people know. This is already happening with so-called UDA's, "user defined applications" written in everything from Visual Basic to Perl. UDA's are popping up all over the place in the DoD. Once the person who created the UDA is transferred, no one else knows what to do with it or how to maintain it. Often is unmaintainable because it is in some special version of some special language that is not portable to the next [version of] an operating system upgrade. As I was describing this situation, one of my students said, paraphrasing, "It sounds like cancelling the Ada mandate became a license to steal." Richard Riehle rdriehle@nps.navy.mil richard@adaworks.com http://www.adaworks.com -- Posted from monterey.nps.navy.mil [131.120.18.26] via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 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 0 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-04-19 19:31 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <F5AD48747FC0324EB21B2B2BD27D5E8698B4EB@Saipan>, Riehle, Richard says... > >original Ada policy had been abrogated. Then I pointed out that, >since the abrogation of that policy, I see people using all kinds of >new languages. I predicted that over the next few years, we will >be right back to the situation that triggered the need for Ada in >the first place: a proliferation of programming languages that only .. >As I was describing this situation, one of my students said, paraphrasing, >"It sounds like cancelling the Ada mandate became a license to steal." In all fairness, my impression is that the mandate was widely ignored when it was in effect (thown down and danced upon would be a better description), and that today's proliferation of little scripting languages (Perl, Python, TCL, VisualBasic, JavaScript, Guile, Ruby, etc.) owe practialy nothing to DoD support. But whatever the causes, I'll grant you that the symmetry is interesting. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 2001-04-19 19:31 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-04-24 5:31 ` Kent Paul Dolan 2001-04-24 8:03 ` David Starner ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Kent Paul Dolan @ 2001-04-24 5:31 UTC (permalink / raw) There's a point to all this, though it is fairly far along. Richard said: RDR> I was recounting the history of Ada for one of my RDR> classes at Naval Postgraduate School today. I was across town from you interviewing at your Fleet Numerical annex a handful of weeks ago, this discussion recalls that and my earlier stint there. RDR> At one point, I came to fact that the original RDR> Ada policy had been abrogated. That's a nice way of expressing it. Another way is to say that the separate military services succeeded in a flagrant and determined violation of direct orders from their Secretary, turning heel dragging into the next best thing to armed insurrection, and _so_ much more civilized. I got fired from my contractor's job at Fleet seven years ago for suggesting _around_ the chain of command that perhaps a little attention to enforcing the Ada mandate, say at my desktop, to reduce the current chaos, would be in order. I understand that the captain who ordered my dismissal was pretty much frothing at the time that all his ways of weaseling around the Ada mandate had been exposed from under the rock where they dwelt. Sigh. RDR> Then I pointed out that, since the abrogation of RDR> that policy, I see people using all kinds of new RDR> languages. Before, during, despite, and after, that is correct. RDR> I predicted that over the next few years, we will RDR> be right back to the situation that triggered the RDR> need for Ada in the first place: a proliferation RDR> of programming languages that only a few people RDR> know. You are there already. Go over to Fleet and check out "Fortran 95", which they are using because it is the latest and shiniest new thing despite admissions to me during the interview process that no one there has a clue how to write more than Fortran 77 in it. RDR> This is already happening with so-called UDA's, RDR> "user defined applications" written in everything RDR> from Visual Basic to Perl. Nice to know that open rebellion now has an acronym. RDR> UDA's are popping up all over the place in the RDR> DoD. Nothing has changed. My last job at Fleet, I was handed an application suite written in 12 different programming languages, and, it being among the missing, added Ada 83 to the mix on my own. Oh, in 1992 - 1994. RDR> Once the person who created the UDA is RDR> transferred, no one else knows what to do with it RDR> or how to maintain it. However, that is not the fault of the person leaving, nor of the choice of some "little language". RDR> Often is unmaintainable because it is in some RDR> special version of some special language that is RDR> not portable to the next [version of] an RDR> operating system upgrade. The term "open source software" hasn't been heard within the Armed Services then? [Rhetorical question, Richard, really, I'm still angry from 1994.] RDR> As I was describing this situation, one of my RDR> students said, paraphrasing, "It sounds like RDR> cancelling the Ada mandate became a license to RDR> steal." No, it became a license to commit rebellion within the US Armed Services by means short of force of arms. That will not be forgotten when the next occasion arises. Were I the rest of the world foolishly depending on the US to suppress enemies at home and abroad, losing Ada, and with her the fiction that the US military is firmly under the control of the US civilian government, would not make me sleep better at night. Ted replied: TED> In all fairness, my impression is that the TED> mandate was widely ignored when it was in effect TED> (th[r]own down and danced upon would be a better TED> description), and that today's proliferation of TED> little scripting languages (Perl, Python, TCL, TED> VisualBasic, JavaScript, Guile, Ruby, etc.) owe TED> practialy nothing to DoD support. True stuff. There are, literally, thousands (less than five, more than two, probably) of programming languages, a small but significant portion of CS graduates worldwide create one as a thesis project, for example. I might have written one or two myself, but I had the good grace to throw them away when I was done with them. The software industry being more pragmatic than most realize, sometimes it is the best languages that survive, sometimes really niche languages arise and thrive. I interviewed at a power controller manufacturer (for stuff like electric cars, golf carts, and on down) and was rather astounded to find that they had created their own, in house, compiled programming language, whose primitive concepts included bits appropriate to power control closed feedback loops, this in an enterprise so conservative they still had a company pension plan. One of the lessons to be learned there is that the proliferation of programming languages is not likely to end soon, so fighting it may not be a profitable approach. Another, more obscure one, is that maybe DoD ought to get in on the game, and more like the controller company and less like the Ada effort. I cannot envision a programming language whose primitive constructs are battlefield command and control, strategy and tactics, but I suspect someone can, and to a Forth programmer, something like OFtEotL ("outflank the enemy on the left") would be a perfectly natural next dictionary word to define, while to an OOPer, that kind of thing would dispatch dynamically based on a type of engagement tag. <tiny grin> 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. One well known and fairly major clue might be that Larry Wall is a linguist by training. Does he know something the Ada team should have considered about how the user wants to _think of_ a language? Another major clue is that John Ousterhout is an engineer by training. Does he know something about how the user wants to _use_ a language that the Ada folks might have considered? Of course, over time, the more mindshare a language has, the more pressure / contributions it has to improve, so eventually lots of these hacker languages have gotten hoary and respectible. TED> But whatever the causes, I'll grant you that the TED> symmetry is interesting. More than that, worth a lot of sincere introspection and planning, both for DoD and for the software industry as a global entity, this lest each get blindsided yet again. The DoD found it could not thrive (and so far as I know, probably still does not) as a balkanized set of programmers knowing one language very well and not talking to the next encampment because that one knows another language well, but not the same one. Can it thrive under a still different model than either "one programming language fits all" or "welcome to Babel"? I've been having an extensive offline discussion with Brian Harvey at Berkeley, developer and maintainer of ucblogo, a version of the Logo programming language starring in a sibling newsgroup of this one, comp.lang.logo. I was pushing for more "first class programming language" quality for even a programming language targeted at kids, he was telling me why it won't ever happen. He asked me why I'd bothered to learn many dozen programming languages over a long career. Surely the half dozen languages he named should suffice any sane person? Well, no, because as in the job at Fleet, where six of the languages I had to use were unfamiliar to me even by name, as an itinerent worker bee programmer, I don't get the chance to choose which languages my enterprise uses (usually), I get to use what they have. Check current online job listings for "competent programmer, any language" and see how far you get finding a job (actually, send me the listing, I'm looking). * So, one way out of the UDA morass is simply to train programmers to learn new languages quickly. This lets you find a programmer and let him or her learn the language by fixing the application written in that language. However, ike Ada as a Procrustean bed, that one size solution also does not suit all, not all programmers with something of value to contribute are wired that way, so there are additional measures that need taking for those workers. And in general, here are other things that need adding to finding a path out of the UDA mess before it is (much worse of) one. * Make sure that open source tools with source licenses are always highly ranked at the RFP level, for a couple of reasons. Open source tools can, with incredible pain, be upgraded by the customer. Open source programming tools (at least popular ones) probably inherently have more knowledgable potential employees out there who can do such an upgrade, or upgrade the application program, for that matter, than do the closed source kinds of tools that only a vendor could love. * Attempt to choose tools with simple mental models, to assure ease of programmer training. Follow, for example, the Modula-2 model, _not_ the Ada model. Follow the APL model, not the Fortran 95 model, of how to talk about a multi-dimensional slice of a right-ragged matrix, to get away from religious issues probably not capable of rational discussion here. If someone gets called a language lawyer, or needs to be called as a language lawyer, in a discussion of how to make something work, then you flunked. however good the intentions of the language designers, they've built something that won't grab mindshare. Brian and I in our discussion repeatedly dipped into the issue of "scope" of an identifier. This is instant MEGO (my eyes glaze over) material for the casual programmer. Don't tell me about your problems, language designer, just make it work, and not like that. If it is complex to do something, and your user has to know about that complexity, you flunk again. * Take into account from the beginning that enterprises outlast their staff, and make sure that the "Jill gets run over by a truck" plan is in place when a UDA begins, not some after-thought, and make that part of the check off list for beginning a UDA, before Jill writes a line of code. * Make programmers as interested as managers in having the contingency plan in place. Nobody gets promoted with a dangling project with "run over by a truck" exposure. Nobody gets bonuses, ditto. Nobody gets a project accepted as "completed within budget and time constraints", ditto. Nobody gets rid of maintenance responsibility for a project, ditto. One nice side effect of all this is that something like Ada that makes sure you and your potential replacement can do a turnover quickly becomes a lot more attractive. Gee, I only have to use this one language and all my turnovers will be easy? Why don't I program in it from up front? * Make the managers as invested as the programmers in having a contingency plan in place. No project gets accepted as complete by higher management until it is backed up offsite, both in having people to maintain it, resources to run it, data to drive it, all in place in case terrorists / nature sap this site. No manager gets promoted, bonuses, milestone checkoffs, etc., ditto. * The same scam works with obvious variations for vendors, interaction with other Armed services, etc. All would work toward commonality of tools instead of proliferation of tools. What the Ada effort ignored was something an old FIPS publication called "Organizational Preparedness for Change" might have covered. People protect fiefdoms, savagely, so those must be disassembled, craftily, not by fiat from above. The problem with the Ada mandate is that the services protected their fiefdoms, and showed no higher organizational level of discipline at all, just the outward show of some. This is human nature, and was ignored in the planning phases for Ada. Putting some higher level military service discipline back in place would probably help a lot, wherever the next attempt to untie this knot heads. Think of it as an interesting exercise to undergo for a proof of concept that it can be done at all. Cheers! xanthian. -- Kent Paul Dolan <xanthian@well.com> http://www.well.com/user/xanthian/resume.html Yeah, right. -- Posted from smtp.well.com [208.178.101.27] via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 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 ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: David Starner @ 2001-04-24 8:03 UTC (permalink / raw) On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Kent Paul Dolan <xanthian@well.com> wrote: > Nothing has changed. My last job at Fleet, I was > handed an application suite written in 12 different > programming languages, and, it being among the > missing, added Ada 83 to the mix on my own. Oh, in > 1992 - 1994. 12 full programming languages, or are you counting stuff like make and autoconf? > * Attempt to choose tools with simple mental models, > to assure ease of programmer training. > > Follow, for example, the Modula-2 model, _not_ the Ada > model. [...] > If someone gets called a language lawyer, or needs to > be called as a language lawyer, in a discussion of how > to make something work, then you flunked. however > good the intentions of the language designers, they've > built something that won't grab mindshare. Won't grab mindshare? Why do you say that? If you compare the mindshare of Modula-2 to Ada, I think you'll find that Modula-2 is almost dead, whereas Ada is one of the common 'minor' languages. I can find as many free Algol-60 compilers as I can Modula-2 compilers, and I've never seen a library or program for or in Modula-2 appear in Freshmeat or Debian (two major open source repositories.) I haven't looked at Modula-2, but I've looked at (unextended, Wirthian) Pascal and Oberon, two of Wirth's other languages. The reason I don't use either of them is because I find the missing features to be too annoying to deal with. Generics, enumerations, bitwise operations, non-OO programming, etc. Ada provides me with all the tools I need to get almost any job done that you'd call on an Algol-class language to solve, usually in a way that I'm comfortable working with. That's important to me, and considering the rush to C++ and Perl (other languages providing a full set of tools for their fields at the cost of simplicty), I'd say that other programmers find it important too. -- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org "I don't care if Bill personally has my name and reads my email and laughs at me. In fact, I'd be rather honored." - Joseph_Greg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 2001-04-24 8:03 ` David Starner @ 2001-04-25 6:28 ` Florian Weimer 0 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-04-25 6:28 UTC (permalink / raw) dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu (David Starner) writes: > On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Kent Paul Dolan <xanthian@well.com> wrote: > > Nothing has changed. My last job at Fleet, I was > > handed an application suite written in 12 different > > programming languages, and, it being among the > > missing, added Ada 83 to the mix on my own. Oh, in > > 1992 - 1994. > > 12 full programming languages, or are you counting stuff like > make and autoconf? A web site I'm maintaining is implemented in six or seven programming languages. 12 isn't that high a number. :-/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 2001-04-24 5:31 ` Kent Paul Dolan 2001-04-24 8:03 ` David Starner @ 2001-04-24 8:54 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2001-04-25 3:09 ` Stephen J. Bevan 2001-04-24 16:01 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-04-24 22:20 ` Marin David Condic 3 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2001-04-24 8:54 UTC (permalink / raw) 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. TCL is failing these days. Cameron Laird recently in his column lamented that TCL books had stopped selling. Probably means that perl and python can do the job now. TCL was popular/tolerated because of TK. Once the more usable (compared to TCL) programming languages got something usable, TCL had no useful life anymore and is being discarded. It will not be missed. >One well known and fairly major clue might be that >Larry Wall is a linguist by training. Does he know >something the Ada team should have considered about >how the user wants to _think of_ a language? I would not be surprised if you are right. I think he made some interesting constructs in perl. E.g. I really like "unless" because it allows me to specify exactly what I want to express, when I use it. Greetings, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 2001-04-24 8:54 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2001-04-25 3:09 ` Stephen J. Bevan 0 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Stephen J. Bevan @ 2001-04-25 3:09 UTC (permalink / raw) "Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> writes: > >One well known and fairly major clue might be that > >Larry Wall is a linguist by training. Does he know > >something the Ada team should have considered about > >how the user wants to _think of_ a language? > > I would not be surprised if you are right. I think he made some interesting > constructs in perl. E.g. I really like "unless" because it allows me to > specify exactly what I want to express, when I use it. While Larry can certainly be credited with putting it in Perl, "unless" was a part of Lisp before Perl was a twinkle in Larry's eye. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 2001-04-24 5:31 ` Kent Paul Dolan 2001-04-24 8:03 ` David Starner 2001-04-24 8:54 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2001-04-24 16:01 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-04-27 7:44 ` Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) Peter Richtmyer 2001-05-01 16:25 ` License to Steal Stephen Leake 2001-04-24 22:20 ` Marin David Condic 3 siblings, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-04-24 16:01 UTC (permalink / raw) 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. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) 2001-04-24 16:01 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-04-27 7:44 ` Peter Richtmyer 2001-04-27 11:10 ` Kevin Rigotti 2001-04-27 17:31 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-05-01 16:25 ` License to Steal Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Peter Richtmyer @ 2001-04-27 7:44 UTC (permalink / raw) "Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message news:3AE5A34F.B89C8D5F@boeing.com... > > 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. There seems to be quite some controversy as to whether there is such a thing as "Software Engineering". So I am not sure there is really such a thing as "Software Engineers". On the other hand, since you have called 2% of coders "software engineers" (not capitalized) then there is SOMETHING called that. (by you). That said (and maybe it says nothing), I certainly "feel your pain" regarding the lack of professionalism in what we regard as this serious profession. > This has something to > do with how people's brains are wired; only weirdoes can be software > engineers. I question the term "weirdoes". We have qualities (perhaps) and modes of operation when programming that are fairly rare. I am not sure that "rare" should be confused with "weird". I am not a linguist, but I just looked up "weird" in my Webster's, and I do not think it fits. Ironically, I had Webster's out because earlier I had looked up "peer", because we are going through "peer reviews", and I felt that most of those "peers" of mine were not, by definition, my peers. Except that we ("software engineers") are not "ranked" based upon the "software engineering" that we do. We are ranked based upon so many other factors (including coding). My point is, as long as people are rewarded with money, recognition and promotion as "coders", most (your 98%) will not become "software engineers". Those of us (2%) that are "driven" by the internal rewards of being "professionals" will become professionals. (I guess there are environments that reward software professionalism, I just haven't been there in a while and forget what it is like.) > 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. I use Ada for most application programs. But for writing tools to help me write programs, I find myself using Perl alot. It is fast and powerful in some different dimensions. I could care less about the "unless" statement when writing code. But the ease of creating and using arrays and associative arrays, of manipulating text strings, etc, make it ideal for some of my tools (that analyze code and "build" new Ada code). I am "guilty" also of creating another "language". It is one that I use with my own interpreter in a scripting language for an interactive test tool. I ended up creating a language that is the "union" of a small subset of Ada and a small subset Perl. That said, languages are tools. I would use RPG in a heartbeat for certain applications if we had the compiler and I had the applications that fit it. "expect the best..." Peter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) 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 ` (2 more replies) 2001-04-27 17:31 ` Jeffrey Carter 1 sibling, 3 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Kevin Rigotti @ 2001-04-27 11:10 UTC (permalink / raw) Peter Richtmyer wrote in message ... > >"Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message >news:3AE5A34F.B89C8D5F@boeing.com... >> >> 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. > >There seems to be quite some controversy as to whether there is such >a thing as "Software Engineering". So I am not sure there is really such a >thing as "Software Engineers". On the other hand, since you have called 2% >of coders "software engineers" (not capitalized) then there is SOMETHING >called that. (by you). > There certainly is here in the UK, I'm registered as a Chartered Engineer. Minimum requirements for CEng are essentially a Masters degree in engineering and four years appropriate training and experience. Engineering exams and the professional bodies here have requirements common to all disciplines (project management, engineering maths, relevant law, etc) so I would consider myself as much an engineer as anyone producing a more physical product. If you want a bridge over your garden pond then a local builder will do, but if it has to cross a river and carry a motorway then you need an Engineer. The same applies to software. "Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote ... > There's no easy way to determine if someone is a coder or part of that > 2%. Aren't there MEng degrees in software engineering in the States? Kevin ---- ATC Systems Group, DERA, St Andrews Road, Malvern, Worcestershire, UK Phone +44 (0)1684 89 69 11, fax +44(0)1684 89 41 09 DERA disclaimers and restrictions apply, details on request ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and 2001-04-27 11:10 ` Kevin Rigotti @ 2001-04-27 13:42 ` Ted Dennison 2001-04-27 14:14 ` Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) Peter Richtmyer 2001-04-27 17:52 ` Jeffrey Carter 2 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-04-27 13:42 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9cbk4a$que$1@trog.dera.gov.uk>, Kevin Rigotti says... > > >There certainly is here in the UK, I'm registered as a Chartered Engineer. > >Minimum requirements for CEng are essentially a Masters degree in >engineering and four years appropriate training and experience. Engineering .. >If you want a bridge over your garden pond then a local builder will do, but >if it has to cross a river and carry a motorway then you need an Engineer. >The same applies to software. In the US, software is typically (its a state-wide issue) exempt from such certification requirements. .. >Aren't there MEng degrees in software engineering in the States? The most accepted degree program in the US is "Computer Science". Some CS programs are part of the school's Engineering department, but many are part of the Math department. There are some other programs floating about some universities, the most prominent and applicable of which is "Computer Engineering", but they aren't as accepted as CS. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) 2001-04-27 11:10 ` Kevin Rigotti 2001-04-27 13:42 ` Ada, Software Engineering and Ted Dennison @ 2001-04-27 14:14 ` Peter Richtmyer 2001-04-27 17:55 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-04-27 17:52 ` Jeffrey Carter 2 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Peter Richtmyer @ 2001-04-27 14:14 UTC (permalink / raw) "Kevin Rigotti" <rigotti@atc.dera.gov.uk> wrote in message news:9cbk4a$que$1@trog.dera.gov.uk... > > Peter Richtmyer wrote in message ... > > > >There seems to be quite some controversy as to whether there is such > >a thing as "Software Engineering". Kevin Said > > There certainly is here in the UK, I'm registered as a Chartered Engineer. > > Minimum requirements for CEng are essentially a Masters degree in > engineering and four years appropriate training and experience. Engineering > exams and the professional bodies here have requirements common to all > disciplines (project management, engineering maths, relevant law, etc) so I > would consider myself as much an engineer as anyone producing a more > physical product. > > If you want a bridge over your garden pond then a local builder will do, but > if it has to cross a river and carry a motorway then you need an Engineer. > The same applies to software. > The point is that it is said that there is such a thing as "Engineering". I can not describe what Engineering is for you, but it has certain principles, etc. And there are things like "Bridges", "Software", etc. I think that there is something called Civil Engineering that applies the disciplines of Engineering to building stuff like bridges. But there is no body of discipline of Engineering that is really Engineering that is Software Engineering, that can be used to write programs. Programming is still a "craft". Just because I call something "Bacon and Eggs Engineering" when I make breakfast does not mean it is really "Engineering". Even if I give training to people in creating bacon and eggs, give tests on making bacon and eggs, and charge people money for a certificate of Bacon and Eggs Engineering does not make it "Engineering". (As I understand it :-) I can not find the article. I think it was by Don Gray (Grey?) called "Software and Society" and I got it off Jerry Weinberg's web site (which I can not find - the site I found for him is not the same.) I may have the article at work so check back here tomorrow. > "Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote ... > > There's no easy way to determine if someone is a coder or part of that > > 2%. > Aren't there MEng degrees in software engineering in the States? > Yes - but (according to the argument) it is not "Engineering". Calling an 8 year-old Boy a "Man" does not make him a Man. :-) > Kevin > ---- > ATC Systems Group, DERA, St Andrews Road, Malvern, Worcestershire, UK > Phone +44 (0)1684 89 69 11, fax +44(0)1684 89 41 09 > DERA disclaimers and restrictions apply, details on request > > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) 2001-04-27 14:14 ` Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) Peter Richtmyer @ 2001-04-27 17:55 ` Jeffrey Carter 0 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-04-27 17:55 UTC (permalink / raw) Peter Richtmyer wrote: > > "Kevin Rigotti" <rigotti@atc.dera.gov.uk> wrote in message > news:9cbk4a$que$1@trog.dera.gov.uk... > > Aren't there MEng degrees in software engineering in the States? > > > Yes - but (according to the argument) it is not "Engineering". It may not be "engineering", but it's certainly different from what coders do. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) 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 17:52 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-04-27 21:35 ` David Starner 2 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-04-27 17:52 UTC (permalink / raw) Kevin Rigotti wrote: > > > There certainly is [such a thing as software engineers] here in the UK, > I'm registered as a Chartered Engineer. > > Minimum requirements for CEng are essentially a Masters degree in > engineering and four years appropriate training and experience. Engineering > exams and the professional bodies here have requirements common to all > disciplines (project management, engineering maths, relevant law, etc) so I > would consider myself as much an engineer as anyone producing a more > physical product. > ... > > "Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote ... > > There's no easy way to determine if someone is a coder or part of that > > 2%. > Aren't there MEng degrees in software engineering in the States? I have an MS in Software Systems Engineering from George Mason University. Most of my fellow students, who have the same degree, are not part of that 2%. The final course for the degree was a large group project simulating a flexible manufacturing system. A sub-group of my group was supposed to implement the simulation of the workstations. They produced an extremely complicated set of analysis and design documents, and at the end of the semester had code that would not compile, much less work as required. The day before the last day of class I designed and implemented their software in 4 hours. I'm sure most of the people on this list could have done the same. This tendency to introduce unnecessary complexity is common among coders. The ability to eliminate unnecessary complexity is common to software engineers. All the members of that sub-group received the MS SWSE, but that does not make them software engineers. Their inability to implement a simple piece of software in 15 weeks proves that they are coders. These were people with several years experience in software development as well as CS degrees. Clearly, neither education nor experience identify software engineers. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) 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 0 siblings, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: David Starner @ 2001-04-27 21:35 UTC (permalink / raw) On Fri, 27 Apr 2001, Jeffrey Carter <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote: > All the members of that sub-group received the MS SWSE, but that does > not make them software engineers. Their inability to implement a simple > piece of software in 15 weeks proves that they are coders. These were > people with several years experience in software development as well as > CS degrees. Clearly, neither education nor experience identify software > engineers. Saying coders = lousy programmers and software engineers = good programmers is not a useful distinction, and it's somewhat arrogant to boot. If making the distinction between a software programmer and an software engineer is useful and meaningful, it has to do with the design of code, not the speed of implementation. That you could code their problem in 4 hours is not interesting. Was your code documented? Was it maintainable? Did it follow a clear design plan? Were the same style conventions used throughout the code? Was it tested? Did it have a formal test structure? Many a programmer who couldn't write structured, maintainable code to save his life can churn out working (for common cases) code extremely fast. -- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org "I don't care if Bill personally has my name and reads my email and laughs at me. In fact, I'd be rather honored." - Joseph_Greg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and 2001-04-27 21:35 ` David Starner @ 2001-04-30 13:50 ` Ted Dennison 2001-04-30 15:40 ` Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) Jeffrey Carter 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-04-30 13:50 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9cconc$8a21@news.cis.okstate.edu>, David Starner says... > >Saying coders = lousy programmers and software engineers = good >programmers is not a useful distinction, and it's somewhat arrogant >to boot. Right. Everybody knows its "hackers", not "coders". :-) --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) 2001-04-27 21:35 ` David Starner 2001-04-30 13:50 ` Ada, Software Engineering and Ted Dennison @ 2001-04-30 15:40 ` Jeffrey Carter 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-04-30 15:40 UTC (permalink / raw) David Starner wrote: > > Saying coders = lousy programmers and software engineers = good > programmers is not a useful distinction, and it's somewhat arrogant > to boot. I didn't say this. I don't use the term "programmer", since it does not make the distinction between coders and software engineers. What I said was that coders /= software engineers. > > If making the distinction between a software programmer and an > software engineer is useful and meaningful, it has to do with the > design of code, not the speed of implementation. That you could code > their problem in 4 hours is not interesting. Was your code > documented? Was it maintainable? Did it follow a clear design plan? > Were the same style conventions used throughout the code? Was it > tested? Did it have a formal test structure? Many a programmer who > couldn't write structured, maintainable code to save his life can > churn out working (for common cases) code extremely fast. The point is not that I am good or special because I could solve this problem quickly; the point is that the problem is simple because I could solve this quickly, and therefore an unreasonable schedule is not why this small team could not solve the problem in a 15-week semester. I think these coders could have solved the problem if they'd stuck to coding. It's because they tried to do software engineering that they produced a horribly over-complex analysis and design that they could not implement. They are not "weirdoes" and thus unable to do software engineering, despite having CS degrees, several years of experience, and all the course work for the MS SWSE degree. This is the overall point of my post, which was to rebut the claim in an earlier post that one could identify a software engineer by the possession of a master's degree in software engineering. These people have such a degree, but they are not software engineers. -- Jeffrey Carter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) 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 17:31 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-04-28 3:25 ` Peter Richtmyer 1 sibling, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-04-27 17:31 UTC (permalink / raw) Peter Richtmyer wrote: > > "Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message > news:3AE5A34F.B89C8D5F@boeing.com... > > This has something to > > do with how people's brains are wired; only weirdoes can be software > > engineers. > > I question the term "weirdoes". We have qualities (perhaps) and modes of > operation when programming that are fairly rare. I am not sure that "rare" > should be confused with "weird". I am not a linguist, but I just looked up > "weird" in my Webster's, and I do not think it fits. Ironically, I had > Webster's > out because earlier I had looked up "peer", because we are going through > "peer reviews", and I felt that most of those "peers" of mine were not, by > definition, my peers. Except that we ("software engineers") are not > "ranked" > based upon the "software engineering" that we do. We are ranked based > upon so many other factors (including coding). A "weirdo" in common American usage is simply someone who is significantly different from the norm; it was not uncommon when I was in school to hear it applied to stereotypical nerds. I did not use it seriously, but merely to emphasize that those capable of becoming software engineers differ from a significant majority of the population. This implies that cost-effective development of high-quality software cannot be accomplished through the "replaceable moron" approach most organizations are so enamored of. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) 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 0 siblings, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Peter Richtmyer @ 2001-04-28 3:25 UTC (permalink / raw) "Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message news:3AE9AD0B.79593A@boeing.com... > A "weirdo" in common American usage is simply someone who is > significantly different from the norm You are saying is that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jordan. are weirdos. since they are all "significantly different from the norm". :-) But that is an aside. The article I mentioned before, "Software and Society" by Don Gray, can be found at. http://www.geraldmweinberg.com/READING.html and select "Readings". There is alot of good stuff there. enjoy. Peter "Expect the Best..." ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* CORRECTION: Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" 2001-04-28 3:25 ` Peter Richtmyer @ 2001-04-28 5:37 ` Peter Richtmyer 2001-04-30 13:49 ` Ada, Software Engineering and Ted Dennison 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Peter Richtmyer @ 2001-04-28 5:37 UTC (permalink / raw) "Peter Richtmyer" <pmr@efortress.com> wrote in message news:teke3ol5pgvq53@corp.supernews.com... > ...The article I mentioned before, > "Software and Society" by Don Gray, can be found at. > > http://www.geraldmweinberg.com/READING.html > > and select "Readings". > That was wrong above. Select "ESSAYS", not "readings". Sorry. > Peter > "Expect the Best..." But tolerate errors gracefully... :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and 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 ` Ted Dennison 2001-04-30 15:58 ` Jeffrey Carter 1 sibling, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-04-30 13:49 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <teke3ol5pgvq53@corp.supernews.com>, Peter Richtmyer says... > >"Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message >news:3AE9AD0B.79593A@boeing.com... > >> A "weirdo" in common American usage is simply someone who is >> significantly different from the norm > >You are saying is that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, >Mother Theresa, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jordan. are weirdos. >since they are all "significantly different from the norm". :-) I'd agree with that. The definition fits. The only problem with saying this is the negative spin on the word, which is entirely a matter of perspective or opinion. But the meaning is dead on. (Of course there was/is a lot more to all of them than just being "weird" or unusual). --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and 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 0 siblings, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-04-30 15:58 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison wrote: > > >You are saying is that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, > >Mother Theresa, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jordan. are weirdos. > >since they are all "significantly different from the norm". :-) > > I'd agree with that. The definition fits. The only problem with saying this is > the negative spin on the word, which is entirely a matter of perspective or > opinion. But the meaning is dead on. Precisely. And it is because people generally associate a negative connotation with "weird" that I use the word. After all, I'm saying to 98% of the population that we can do something that they will never be able to do. Even though this is worshipped in some people, it can still be a dangerous thing to say. -- Jeffrey Carter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada, Software Engineering and 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 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-04-30 18:18 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3AED8BA4.FA51431E@boeing.com>, Jeffrey Carter says... >Precisely. And it is because people generally associate a negative >connotation with "weird" that I use the word. After all, I'm saying to >98% of the population that we can do something that they will never be >able to do. Even though this is worshipped in some people, it can still >be a dangerous thing to say. I don't think it's all that off to spin it negatively anyway. I've had long conversations with intelligent dedicated "hackers". In their opinion, any effort past the minimum required to get the job to where it can be considered "done" is tantamount to stealing from the company/customer. Your typical user doesn't want to pay the time and cost associated with quality software work. A good example from another field is car repair. I've got a minor oil leak in my car. I have a very good repair shop that I like to go to. They told me that there's a bad gasket going into the ignition chamber (or something like that). They said the dealer would just do enough work to get at the gasket from the outside, slather it with some kind of sealant, and be done with it for a couple hundred bucks worth of labor. It might still leak a bit later, and makes other things really tough to fix, but it would do the job. But my shop's mechanic wants to do the Right Thing, which is to take the whole damn thing apart and replace the gasket with a better one, which would be about $800 of labor. Now as a S/W Engineer, I really respect their desire to do the Right Thing, even though it will certianly cost them business. But as the "user", there's no way I'm going to pay $800 to fix a very slow oil leak in an 8 year old car. I think that most of people out there work at whatever it is they do just to make a living. Only a very few of us, in any walk of life, feel that if we are going to spend most of our lives doing this stuff, we owe it to ourselves to put in an effort that we can look back at and be proud of. "The Rise of ""Worse is Better""", the cannonical treatment of this issue, is available online at http://www.ai.mit.edu/docs/articles/good-news/subsection3.2.1.html --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Weird and way off topic (was Re: Ada, Software Engineering...) 2001-04-30 15:58 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-04-30 18:18 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-05-01 1:33 ` Peter Richtmyer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Peter Richtmyer @ 2001-05-01 1:33 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2512 bytes --] "Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message news:3AED8BA4.FA51431E@boeing.com... > Ted Dennison wrote: > > > > >You are saying is that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, > > >Mother Theresa, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jordan. are weirdos. > > >since they are all "significantly different from the norm". :-) > > > > I'd agree with that. The definition fits. The only problem with saying this is > > the negative spin on the word, which is entirely a matter of perspective or > > opinion. But the meaning is dead on. > > Precisely. And it is because people generally associate a negative > connotation with "weird" that I use the word. After all, I'm saying to > 98% of the population that we can do something that they will never be > able to do. Even though this is worshipped in some people, it can still > be a dangerous thing to say. > What you perceive as a "negative spin" on the word "weird" is counter-intuitive based upon the reaction to the Harry Potter series. :-) from www.webster.com (Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary): Main Entry: weirdo Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural weird�os Date: circa 1955 : a person who is extraordinarily strange or eccentric Main Entry: weird Function: adjective Date: 15th century 1 : of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural : MAGICAL 2 : of strange or extraordinary character : ODD, FANTASTIC - weird�ly adverb - weird�ness noun synonyms WEIRD, EERIE, UNCANNY mean mysteriously strange or fantastic. WEIRD may imply an unearthly or supernatural strangeness or it may stress queerness or oddness <weird creatures from another world>. EERIE suggests an uneasy or fearful consciousness that mysterious and malign powers are at work <an eerie calm preceded the bombing raid>. UNCANNY implies disquieting strangeness or mysteriousness <an uncanny resemblance between total strangers>. As I continue on looking at "strange" and "eccentric" definitions, I do not change my mind. I say again: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jordan. are not weirdos *to me*. Based upon your definition ("significantly different from the norm"), , if most people in a set were "weirdos", then they would not be weirdos. I think the definition goes a lot deeper than just normative. However, we have been mixed "weird" and "weirdos", and they are not the same. Your case is a bit better for weirdos than weird. And I certainly respect your right to have that weird idea :-) Peter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 2001-04-24 16:01 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-04-27 7:44 ` Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal) Peter Richtmyer @ 2001-05-01 16:25 ` Stephen Leake 2001-05-02 15:26 ` Ted Dennison 2001-05-03 17:37 ` Alejandro R. Mosteo 1 sibling, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2001-05-01 16:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Jeffrey Carter <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> writes: > 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%. Hmm. Seems like you could just ask if they like Ada :). Also ask if they like Emacs; I bet there's a strong correlation. > If we could restrict professional software development to software > engineers, Ada would be much more popular. And software would be more respectible! -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 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 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-05-02 15:26 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <uk841ghon.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>, Stephen Leake says... > >Jeffrey Carter <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> writes: >> If we could restrict professional software development to software >> engineers, Ada would be much more popular. > >And software would be more respectible! ..and so expensive that only governments and Fortune 500 companies could afford it. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 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 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Alejandro R. Mosteo @ 2001-05-03 17:37 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephen Leake ha escrito esto previamente: > Hmm. Seems like you could just ask if they like Ada :). Also ask if > they like Emacs; I bet there's a strong correlation. See... I love Ada but hate Emacs. I love vi... so what am I? :-) ------------------------------ Alejandro R. Mosteo mailto: 402450@cepsz.unizar.es ------------------------------ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: License to Steal 2001-04-24 5:31 ` Kent Paul Dolan ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-04-24 16:01 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-04-24 22:20 ` Marin David Condic 3 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-04-24 22:20 UTC (permalink / raw) I had always thought that The Ada Mandate approach was flawed because it was based on threats (non-credible ones at that.) I suggested at the time that all the angst over the mandate was going on that having tried threats, maybe it was time to go the other direction and try bribes. I don't think that the Powers-That-Be could grasp the concept - perhaps because it is rather Capitalistic instead of Bureaucratic. Suppose that someone high up the totem poll were to say: "Here, Mr. Programmanager (Or Colonel Programofficer) I have in this cookie jar $100,000.00 genuine U.S. Dollars with non-consecutive serial numbers. If one year from right (look at watch).......now! you're project is being programmed in Ada with no material exceptions, then I will empty this cookie jar into your briefcase and you can go buy yourself a boat or a Lamborghini or *anything* your greedy little heart desires." How long do you think it would take for that Program Officer or Program Manager to get their project moved into Ada? Do you think there would have been a flurry of waivers being begged for? Or would they more likely have found religion? Do you suppose that Colonel Programofficer would likely start saying to his contractors: "Get your programs into Ada or get another customer!" Would Mr. Programmanager have told his reluctant junior managers and senior programmers "Start using Ada or start writing your resume!" Businesses have been tying executive compensation to measurable objectives for some time now and for the most part it works. In general, bribery is going to be far more motivational than threats. (Better for The Prince to be loved than feared? :-) BTW, If I were Mr. Programmanager, I'd have found some bonus money for the junior managers and senior programmers if the objective was met, before I'd have threatened staff changes. But I've seen managers say to recalcitrant staff "Find religion or find another job" (why do Software Metrics come to mind? :-) and have people comply. If I can't have your heart, at least I can have your compliance. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Kent Paul Dolan" <xanthian@well.com> wrote in message news:200104240531.WAA01552@well.com... > > The problem with the Ada mandate is that the services > protected their fiefdoms, and showed no higher > organizational level of discipline at all, just the > outward show of some. > > This is human nature, and was ignored in the planning > phases for Ada. > > Putting some higher level military service discipline > back in place would probably help a lot, wherever the > next attempt to untie this knot heads. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* RE: License to Steal @ 2001-05-03 18:15 Beard, Frank 2001-05-03 20:57 ` Larry Kilgallen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Beard, Frank @ 2001-05-03 18:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 'comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org' > Alejandro wrote: > >See... I love Ada but hate Emacs. I love vi... so what am I? :-) An enlightened C programmer. ;-) I love Ada but I hate both Emacs and vi. I prefer a GUI oriented IDE with some power. I miss some of the features of both editors, but not nearly enough to ever go back. I guess that makes me a soft Adaphile. Frank -----Original Message----- From: Alejandro R.Mosteo [mailto:402450@cepsz.unizar.es] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 1:38 PM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: License to Steal Stephen Leake ha escrito esto previamente: > Hmm. Seems like you could just ask if they like Ada :). Also ask if > they like Emacs; I bet there's a strong correlation. See... I love Ada but hate Emacs. I love vi... so what am I? :-) ------------------------------ Alejandro R. Mosteo mailto: 402450@cepsz.unizar.es ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ comp.lang.ada mailing list comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org http://ada.eu.org/mailman/listinfo/comp.lang.ada ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* RE: License to Steal 2001-05-03 18:15 Beard, Frank @ 2001-05-03 20:57 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-05-06 11:09 ` Alejandro R. Mosteo 0 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-05-03 20:57 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <mailman.988913824.5508.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, "Beard, Frank" <beardf@spawar.navy.mil> writes: >> Alejandro wrote: >> >>See... I love Ada but hate Emacs. I love vi... so what am I? :-) > An enlightened C programmer. ;-) > > I love Ada but I hate both Emacs and vi. I love Ada but ignore Emacs and vi. TECO forever ! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* RE: License to Steal 2001-05-03 20:57 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-05-06 11:09 ` Alejandro R. Mosteo 0 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Alejandro R. Mosteo @ 2001-05-06 11:09 UTC (permalink / raw) Larry Kilgallen ha escrito esto previamente: > I love Ada but ignore Emacs and vi. TECO forever ! I've heard that last VisualStudio version allows to use any OLE compliant editor to be used integrated in the IDE. That's my heaven... AdaGide or similar with Vi keys... ah... ------------------------------ Alejandro R. Mosteo mailto: 402450@cepsz.unizar.es ------------------------------ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2001-05-06 11:09 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 31+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 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 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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