A thought

A thought

[Ken Mays]

Hmmm, I've been reading a lot of posts so here is some meat to chew on. I
was at a company where the embedded developers don't use Ada95. They use
the C programming language. Now, this state of the art development firm also
used Java. Not the JDK v1.1.5 but JDK 1.0.2.

A sprinkle of engineers used MicroSoft's Visual C++. A few had the latest
versions.
Others needed the updated service packs. The engineers would drink coffee
and discuss how they were ex-Borland C++ users. Life was good.

Now for embedded systems development, Ada95 is not a concept to some
engineers.
Notice I'm not saying software engineer. I don't mean computer scientists or
programmer/analyst. I'm speaking of electronic/electrical engineers.
Computer Science graduates usually are not knowledgeable on software
engineering principles. Software reuse is meaningless. CASE is a case of
beer. CMM is a channel on cable.
Reality is that most engineers are just engineers and careless about quality
programming. They'll just hack everything together to get it working. Hell
with documentation of code or OOD/OOP. Hell with data or system modeling.

The commercial market is get it done yesterday. No one has time to read a
book-except if you're traveling. Just think of all the graphic cards for the
PC market and driver updates. How buggy are the drivers or firmware? Should
you run to the engineers and blame them for using C/C++?? Bad programming
design and concept? Bad methodologies?? Bad training?? Bad management??

So in this very real state-of-the-art company, you learn its the processes
and proper use of the right tool for the job that really matter in the end.
Sometimes you are stuck with what the manufacturers give you. Also, bad
training and development processes should be evaluated.

Its like installing a water heater or maintaining one. You either do it
right or wrong.
The wrong way may kill you or shorten the heater's life. The right way is
reading the darn manual and making sure you had proper training on
installing and maintaining water heaters (and the brand you are fooling
with). With this concept in mind, why do we treat software development any
different??

To make it this an Ada95 topic, there is a right way to program in Ada95 and
a wrong way. There are right ways to use Ada95 and wrong ways. I think a lot
of people get stuck with bad training and deficient tools to learn from or
use. I'm tired of reading books that miss the training aspect. The examples
are buggy and non-informative. the example should be the building block of
what you are explaining. Not a "look at this neat code" thing. People should
explain examples and what the lines of code are doing. Remember the K.I.S.S.
theory? Its like teaching me ANSI C++ by using Visual C++/MFC examples (well
ok, you got me). So if I read an Ada95 book and apply the examples, the
examples should compile on Gnat v3.10p1? Ok, that's a start. Now do you mind
explaining to me what I just typed in or loaded from the CD? Lets think of
the people who are reading your book at ALL levels. Have we gotten so
educated that we forgot that most of the people in America have 7th-9th
grade reading levels? Even through 10th-12th grade, most people keep a very
simple reading level. What's the reading level of most newspapers and
magazines? High school or college? Provide people with good books that are
well written and understandable. Provide examples that will mean something
to people. Explain the example and use it as a builkding block.
Yata-yata-yata.

So for the state-of-the-art companies out there, stop working in chaos. Pick
good tools
and provide proper training. Teach them about debugging and error handling.
Teach them how to check for memory leaks. Show them how to use profilers and
documentation tools. Provide them with a mentor or mentors who at least have
a clue.
Stop writing software that is just good-enough when its full of bugs and
crashes too often!!! I can only think of Sun's JDK. Buggy, but well
supported. Oh well.

Just a thought. I'm not right about everything so flaming not necessary.
Even though it may be good for the soul. ;o)
--
Ken Mays, Systems Architect/Engineer
SAIC/MicroSoft Sitebuilder
http://www.saic.com

A thought

[Tom]

I took a course in speed waiting. Now I can wait an hour in only ten minutes. - Steven Wright

Tom <Tom@Quote-Un-Quote.com>

Re: A thought

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

On 2/23/2011 9:17 PM, Tom wrote:
> I took a course in speed waiting. Now I can wait an hour in only ten minutes. - Steven Wright
>

Based on my calculations, you just need to rid a spacecraft for 10 minutes
at a speed of 0.986*c for the hour to have passed.

Would have Saved you the cost of taking that course.

--Nasser
c: speed of light in empty space

Re: A thought

[Adam Beneschan]

On Feb 23, 9:17 pm, Tom <T...@Quote-Un-Quote.com> wrote:
> I took a course in speed waiting. Now I can wait an hour in only ten minutes. - Steven Wright
>
> Tom <T...@Quote-Un-Quote.com>

If this is a complaint that the DELAY statement isn't working
correctly, you should probably let your compiler vendor know.

                                     -- Adam