Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

["Peter Richtmyer" <pmr@efortress.com>]

"Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message
news:3AE5A34F.B89C8D5F@boeing.com...
>
> This is fairly obvious. Anyone can learn to program. I call such people
> "coders". In my experience, only 2% of coders are capable of becoming
> software engineers. (I don't mean only 2% have been trained as software
> engineers; I mean, no matter how much training and experience they get,
> only 2% of coders will become software engineers.

There seems to be quite some controversy as to whether there is such
a thing as "Software Engineering". So I am not sure there is really such a
thing as "Software Engineers". On the other hand, since you have called 2%
of coders "software engineers" (not capitalized) then there is SOMETHING
called that. (by you).

That said (and maybe it says nothing), I certainly "feel your pain"
regarding
the lack of professionalism in what we regard as this serious profession.

> This has something to
> do with how people's brains are wired; only weirdoes can be software
> engineers.

I question the term "weirdoes". We have qualities (perhaps) and modes of
operation when programming that are fairly rare. I am not sure that "rare"
should be confused with "weird". I am not a linguist, but I just looked up
 "weird" in my Webster's, and I do not think it fits. Ironically, I had
Webster's
out because earlier I had looked up "peer", because we are going through
"peer reviews", and I felt that most of those "peers" of mine were not, by
definition, my  peers. Except that we ("software engineers") are not
"ranked"
based upon the "software engineering" that we do. We are ranked based
upon so many other factors (including coding).

My point is, as long as people are rewarded with money, recognition and
promotion as "coders", most (your 98%) will not become "software engineers".
Those of  us (2%) that are "driven" by the internal rewards of being
"professionals"
will become professionals. (I guess there are environments that reward
software professionalism, I just haven't been there in a while and forget
what
it is like.)

> Normal people can only be coders.) Ada is a software
> engineer's language. Ada's features to support software engineering make
> no sense to coders. They just get in the way. On the other hand, in my
> experience at least 90% of software engineers who know Ada like Ada; its
> features reflect the way they think.
>
> The problem is not languages, it's who we allow to create software.
> There's no easy way to determine if someone is a coder or part of that
> 2%. If we could restrict professional software development to software
> engineers, Ada would be much more popular.

I use Ada for most application programs. But for writing tools to help me
write
programs, I find myself using Perl alot. It is fast and powerful in some
different
dimensions. I could care less about the "unless" statement when writing
code. But the ease of creating and using arrays and associative arrays, of
manipulating text strings, etc, make it ideal for some of my tools (that
analyze
code and "build" new Ada code).

I am "guilty" also of creating another "language". It is one that I use with
my own
interpreter in a scripting language for an interactive test tool. I ended up
creating
a language that is the "union" of a small subset of Ada and a small subset
Perl.

That said, languages are tools. I would use RPG in a heartbeat for certain
applications if we had the compiler and I had the applications that fit it.

"expect the best..."
Peter