Re: software engineering and the notion of authorship

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Ralph Silverman asks

        a closely related question is:
        if persons who are supposed to be
                programmers
        can usefully work in groups
        or teams
                were such persons not able
                to program individually...
        ?

        generally,  one may suppose,
        those capable of programming
        individually would be accepting of
                individuality

I have worked completely on my own (e.g. several complete operating systems
written for Honeywell and the first version of Macro-SPITBOL), in small
teams (SPITBOL 370 was a 2-person effort, Realia COBOL was a 3-peson
effort), and in larger groups (GNAT is a several person effort).

I see no real differences. In each case, an absolute standard of consistency
is essential throughout the program. Remember that one of the major needs
for consistency is for maintenance, and how many people developed a project
is rather irrelevant when considering maintenance needs (all the programs
I mention abvove have been maintained by multiple people over the years).

When you are working alone, you can of course set your own standards of
consistency, but in fact I see many 1-person programs that are a mightmare
(oops typo, but rather nice one, I will leave it in :-)          nightmare
of inconsistency. I couldn't possibly work that way myself.

When you are working together, you have first to agree on the standards
of consistency that you will use. That means you don't get to choose yourself
every detail, so what? For example, in the GNAT project, as I have mentioned
before, I was forced to change from ALL_UPPER_CASE_IDENTIFIERS to the more
usual Mixed_Case_Identifiers since that is what the team preferred. It was
awkward at first (you always find it easier to do what you are used to, and
to read code in the style you are used to), but it would never have occurred
to me to react to that awkwardness by insisting on continuing to SHOUT when
I wrote MY_IDENTIFIERS! Instead I conformed and quickly got used to the new
style (now it would be hard to go back).

However, I see many programmers for whom not only does it occur to them to
react in this situation by insisting on using their own style, but they do it
and their management permits it. I am certainly capable of programming
individually, but I am definitely NOT willing to accept this particular
brand of individuality, not for a moment!

The team effort issue of course only applies to groups, but there is another
factor that I think is important. Whether you are working alone or in a
group, an elegantly structured and consistently presented source code is
a source of pride, and that is definitely a positive dynamic in any project.