Re: Standard Library Interest?

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

Robert I. Eachus wrote:

> I've seen and participated in attempts to teach software engineering as 
> an academic discipline.  It doesn't work as such.

I know it perfectly well that it doesn't work, and that it can't work, and why
it can't work. But when I mentioned curriculum I didn't mean passing software
engineering education to formal academic sphere, leaving them without mentoring
about practical issues and practical circumstances.

Proper curriculum is needed for most mentors, not for students. For students
it is useful as a deterrent only - for those who is not oriented towards
engineering. But for many potential mentors such a curriculum is needed as
commonly agreed general guide, framework (susbstitute better word, if you
know it). Note, that you need many mentors, not just several dozens, and that
many good engineers and potentially good mentors do not possess so universal
experience that you probably have. They have good experience in some areas,
and some general outlook on others, but they can't cover all needed areas with
their own experience, and therefore they can't judge what should be taught
anyway, and what may be skipped without too significant loss. You said: the
guild will guide them; and I protested: not a guild, but an explicit and public
curriculum. This is all the difference between our approaches to the problem.

> I could probably sit here and reel off a list of the differences between 
> a software engineer and a hot-shot programmer, but why bother?  Show the 
> list to one of the hot-shot programmers, and they will tell you why 
> their way is right, better, or okay since they are "good enough" to get 
> away with it.  The software engineer will say, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, 
> oops! you forgot one. Nope, here it is...
>
> ....
>
> Sorry, you touched a hot button.

Well, I understand this perfectly, but you have touched my hot button, which
sits quite near to yours, just on other side of the panel -;) . I believe that
for all differences between programmers and software engineers they have some
very important things in common, they should have some common ground. It is
certainly true that responsibilities of software engineer generally are much
better defined than those of programmers, but this does not mean that programmers
are and should be generally less responsible for their production. And the
concentrated and well-defined responsibilities of software engineers is one
of main sources for understanding the notion of programmer's responsibility.
Also, some acquaintance with problems that naturally belong to software engineering rather
than to programming, significantly contribute to programmer's grasp of their
problems.

So, I see attempts to separate software engineers from programmers by some
high and hard barriers as disastrous for both sides - if these attemps succeed
then programmers will become less responsible and less competemt, while software
engineers will, perhaps, become less creative, less competent and more conservative,
which is not so good in such rapidly changing area, which have so little own
history.

Finally, note, that Ada language itself is a fine example, representing a part
of that common ground for software engineers and programmers. I don't think
that such a thing is possible with hard barriers between those trades.



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