Re: Standard Library Interest?

["Alexandre E. Kopilovitch" <aek@vib.usr.pu.ru>]

Robert I. Eachus

> Some years ago, I worked out the right solution--form an Ada software 
> engineering guild, or for that matter a software engineer's guild, and 
> one of the functions of the guild would be to provide and support a 
> library that could be used by its members.  (Including corporate 
> members.)  If you could get the system to insist on only using guild 
> licensed programmers in the correct disciplines, and guild software 
> engineers on certain types of projects this would finally give software 
> engineering a realistic model to work with.

I wonder, why those past model and past term? It is simply inadequate to many
current realities (first of all, numbers matter - you can't simply scale the
guild model). Why not propose a suitable curriculum instead? Include enough
engineering disciplines you think important, and you certainly will deter
those who aren't oriented towards engineering. In fact, the main difference
between a curriculum and guild is that a curriculum is explicit and public,
while guild principles, customs and directions are implicit and concealed.

> Anyone who really is a software engineer not a glorified programmer, 
> knows that the only way software engineering is taught is not in school 
> but by mentoring.

I wonder, why do you think that mentoring is more important in software
engineering than in all classical sciences? Or in professions like doctors and
lawyers? There is enough complexity, and safety requirements are often high
enough. And no one of them is organized in guilds now. Even those "social"
sciences that until recently traditionally have competing "schools" (which
somehow resemble guilds) are gradually leaving that way.




Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia