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From: ram@wb1.cs.cmu.edu (Rob MacLachlan)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Re: Reasons for low reuse
Message-ID: <6103@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 8 Sep 89 17:09:02 GMT
References: <765@swbatl.UUCP> <6393@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 29


>From: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 )
>Subject: Re: Reasons for low reuse
>Date: 5 Sep 89 21:40:24 GMT
>
>   There is a general progression which all fields go through:
>
>     Art form  =>  Engineering discipline  =>  Hard Science
>
>   The progress along this route is proportional to what is known
>   about the field.  

This is a ridiculously sweeping generalization, and also one pretty
discredited in philosophy-of-science circles.  This "physics envy" has been
a justification for much bad science (e.g. behaviorism.)

As to the hardware analogy, I am not surprised non-technical managers find
it seductive: oversimplifications usually are.  It does show that it would
be *nice* to have standard software components, but it doesn't show that it
is possible.  

There is an illusory similarity because the analogy compares *computer*
hardware and *computer* software.  You could have said:
    "It takes only 47 kinds of screws to build an automobile, so we should
     be able to make do with 47 sofware components."

But of course, that would sound silly...

  Rob