License to Steal

License to Steal

["Riehle, Richard"]

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





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Re: License to Steal

[Ted Dennison]

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

Re: License to Steal

[Kent Paul Dolan]

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.


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Re: License to Steal

[David Starner]

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

Re: License to Steal

[Florian Weimer]

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. :-/

Re: License to Steal

[Tarjei T. Jensen]

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,

Re: License to Steal

[Stephen J. Bevan]

"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.

Re: License to Steal

[Jeffrey Carter]

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.

Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[Peter Richtmyer]

"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

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[Kevin Rigotti]

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

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and

[Ted Dennison]

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

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[Peter Richtmyer]

"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
>
>
>

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[Jeffrey Carter]

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.

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[Jeffrey Carter]

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.

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[David Starner]

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

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and

[Ted Dennison]

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

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[Jeffrey Carter]

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

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[Jeffrey Carter]

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.

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[Peter Richtmyer]

"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..."

CORRECTION: Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes"

[Peter Richtmyer]

"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...    :-)

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and

[Ted Dennison]

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

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and

[Jeffrey Carter]

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

Re: Ada, Software Engineering and

[Ted Dennison]

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

Weird and way off topic (was Re: Ada, Software Engineering...)

[Peter Richtmyer]

[-- 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

Re: License to Steal

[Stephen Leake]

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

Re: License to Steal

[Ted Dennison]

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

Re: License to Steal

[Alejandro R. Mosteo]

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
------------------------------

Re: License to Steal

[Marin David Condic]

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.