Re: Programmers -> Engineers; Engineers -> Programmers

["Marin David Condic, 407.796.8997, M/S 731-93" <condicma@PWFL.COM>]

James Krell <jkrell@NSWC.NAVY.MIL> writes:
>Let's say an organization is developing software for a radar system...
>Is it better to take engineers/scientists who understand the system
>and teach them how to program?  Or is it better to take programmers
>and teach them about the radar system?
>

    My experience has been that you generally need a little bit of
    both. The hypothetical radar system is going to need "application"
    oriented software and it's going to need "system" oriented
    software. Taking a radar expert and training him/her as an
    "application" programmer can be useful. But you're probably
    wasting time training them on all the ins/outs of system level
    programming - and hence the value of the computer scientist.

    Often, you have the domain specialists acting as analysts and the
    computer geeks translating this into design. This works well as
    long as both sides are reasonably good at communicating. Maybe
    companies would be better off hiring some of both and training
    them all in communication skills?

    MDC

Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer    ATT:        407.796.8997
M/S 731-96                                      Technet:    796.8997
Pratt & Whitney, GESP                           Fax:        407.796.4669
P.O. Box 109600                                 Internet:   CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
West Palm Beach, FL 33410-9600                  Internet:   CONDIC@FLINET.COM
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