Re: Any research putting c above ada?

[kaz@vision.crest.nt.com (Kaz Kylheku)]

In article <33674E4C.446B@cca.rockwell.com>,
Roy Grimm  <ragrimm@cca.rockwell.com> wrote:
>> What is a computer-science view and how is it incompatible with a software
>> engineering view? Do I detect a slight bias against computer science folk?
>
>If I'm not mistaken, you may have just illustrated his point.

I'm not sure how, by asking a mere question!

>I was trained in the computer-science paradigm.  When I arrived at
>Rockwell and started working on engineering projects, I was astounded to
>see the difference between how I had done things before and how I had to
>do them here.  At my previous position, we cranked out code.  Here, we
>design and build software.  The focus here is on the design process and
>how we can build software to meet the design.  At my former employer, we
>were simply asked to crank out some code that did the job.  If it wasn't
>quite right, we'd throw some fixes into it and release it again, and
>again, and again until we either got it close enough or the buyer wanted
>something completely different.  That kind of slip shod programming
>doesn't fly very far here.

That is slip-shod, but it doesn't seem to relate to my own computer science
background and experiences.

What was the focus of your computer science training? Was it largely
theoretical, or did it involve a lot of ``hands on'' work?

I remember one school project that I never even implemented. It was just a
paper outlining requirements and design. There weren't many software
engineering courses in the program, but there were two tough ones. One
two-semester long team project, and a course focusing on various topics
in software engineering. I've never been encouraged to just code something;
design was always the focus. We learned to admire an elegant design, rather
than implementations. There were courses in which one cranked out code;
the upper level courses were very oriented toward implementation, although
there was a large gap between the implementation assignments and the 
``theory'' matter which was the subject of examinations making up most of
the mark. The assignments did encourage a lot of coding in little time 
simply because of the time constraints of the curriculum and the overall
hurried pace. It could well be that some people took this too seriously, and
got the wrong message as a result.

Throughout school, I hustled my own contract work. I've always insisted on
going through a requirements analysis with the clients, as well as walking
through some of the less technical aspects of the design. I thought that this
was what computer scientists were supposed to do, and since I was trying to
become one, I emulated the behavior. I actually find that I even looked for
ways in which computers can be _avoided_ rather than blindly advocating their
use for every problem or subproblem. You don't just throw code at
everything in sight!

However, over the years I've had the chance to talk to a few graduates from
other computer science programs and was surprised at the diversity of
experiences. One student complained that his whole undergraduate career was
``all theory'' geared toward further studies. He never got to do any projects
involving real implementation.  He claimed to have gained next to no experience
with things like networking, graphical interfaces or concurrent programming. I
was shocked when he revealed to me that he allegedly studied at MIT!

It's hard to say anything about the nature of computer science training,
since it seems to vary a great deal from institution to institution.

>> Have you ever seen code written by engineers with no understanding of
>> computer science? :))
>
>I have.  Let me tell you, the code is atrocious.  However, it is only

I was only joking, and playing on the multiple meanings of ``engineer''.
It's clear that the discussion is about software engineers, not civil or
electrical engineers! :) These latter guys tend to write 500 line procedures
with repeated code that is not factored into subprograms. (This is just an
observation based on a limited sample, not meant to generalize to all
engineers. :)

>slightly worse that code written by "computer scientists" with no
>understanding of software engineering.  In both cases, I find that the
>code is hacked together to fit what the person felt the design should
>be.  The only real difference is that the computer scientis uses more
>efficient algorithms than the engineer.

How is that? Are you saying that the computer scientist had a very rigid
design, and hacked the code to fit that design rather than going through a more
iterative approach to find a more suitable or flexible design? Or perhaps the
fellow didn't spend enough time on the design, and ended up with something
having a narrow scope.  Rather than indicating no training in software
engineering, that could simply indicate a training in old-style software
engineering, whereby a team is supposed to go through through requirements,
design, implementation and testing stages in one swoop, leaving behind a
massive paper trail of inconsistent documents and inflexible program text.