Re: status of PL/I as a viable language

["Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid>]

In <3E569E8C.4050709@cox.net>, on 02/21/2003
   at 09:46 PM, "Donald L. Dobbs" <donaldldobbs@cox.net> said:

>When I first got into the computing business (circa 1962 -- oh my,
>that  probably makes me older than David Frank) we had systems
>analysts and  programmers.  The latter were actually "coders".  The
>systems analysts  were subject matter experts for the application
>being contemplated.  If  it was an accounting or payroll package the
>S.A. was either a CPA or  someone who had a strong background in
>accounting/bookkeeping, etc.  If  it was a guidance program for a
>missile the S.A. was probably a Ph.D. in  math or celestial
>mechanics. The programmer (coder) only had to know his  Cobol,
>Fortran, PL/I or assembly language.  He didn't have to know the 
>subject matter of the application to any great degree because the
>S.A.  wrote an air-tight spec that the coder was to rigorously
>implement.  His  was not to reason why.  We developed pretty good
>software in those days.

Every time someone says "I don't believe in theories.", another theory
dies. What you describe was the conventional wisdom, but in practice
the SA would make mistakes that the coder was not permitted to
correct. It turned out to be more reliable to forget the
coder-as-automaton and go back to the idea of programmers who
understood what they were doing. The good software in the 1960s was
*not* the stuff designed on the hermetic wall methodology.

>Somewhere along the way, it all fell apart when we (as an economy 
>measure in smaller shops, I suppose) invented the
>Programmer-Analyst.  This, IMHO, is the worst single act that has
>occurred in this industry 

While I see it as a return to sanity.

-- 
     Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT

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