Re: What is wrong with Ada?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:25:29 -0800, adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:

> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message 
> news:4154m07w8547.w6599n4zv086.dlg@40tude.net...
>> On Sat, 21 Apr 2007 18:50:40 GMT, adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
>>
>>> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message
>>> news:krrspgzz88g4$.15lzsnhxml4j.dlg@40tude.net...
>>>>
>>>> It is because SW engineering is not engineering. And that is because CS is
>>>> not much science. It rather sways between applied mathematics and "stamp
>>>> collecting."
>>
> The "groups of programmers" is not a factor when
> we think of engineering. The freedom programmers have is one of the
> things that needs to be constrained first.

Absolutely.

> We need to give the programmers
> less freedom, not more. This requires an entirely new model for constraints
> than we have now.

Yup, replaceable parts, an outsourcing dream, take five today, three
tomorrow... (:-)) This model is not new, it is centuries old. If it does
not work now, it will later.

The evolution cycle of a human related to the given kind of occupation is:

artist/artisan/mage -> scientist -> engineer -> conveyor -> lumpen

> The constraints of physics are always with us. The fact that we ignore them
> in designing software is not to our credit.

Certainly, but we have to fight against other "physical" constraints which
override the former. It is, because it has to be this way under the
conditions we have. The point is that we can do very little with that,
because the society is unaware of the physics you are talking about.
Otherwise, to give just one example, no-liability licenses were long
illegal.

> What we fail to do in software is benefit from experience. Each project seems to be
> a greenfield effort, perhaps benefitting from the experience of the individual
> programmer, but not benefitting from the collected experience of past 
> engineering efforts.

Because benefiting can happen only as a cognitive process in the society.
The result of that would be a science and then a technology. As long as
this reflection stops at the level of individuals it is not engineering,
but art/artisanship.

> We can agree that programming, as currently practiced, is not an engineering
> effort.   Most programmers have no knowledge and little training in any 
> engineering discipline. And those with engineerign education have somehow been corrupted 
> by the very learning of a programming language.  Somehow, as soon as they learn 
> to write computer programs, in any language, they forget everything they knew about
> engineering.

Exactly, because there is no engineering independent on the science it
applies. They didn't forget anything, because there was nothing to forget.
What they had learnt had nothing to do with SW engineering, except than
common interdisciplinary hand-waving.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de