Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!uh2
From: UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Designing to specs
Message-ID: <89291.134836UH2@PSUVM.BITNET>
Date: 18 Oct 89 17:48:36 GMT
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 23

I thought of another wrinkle on the question of the difference between
the "design" of software and the "engineering" of other stuff.  Much
of the debate concerns how in some fields, such as civil engineering,
many standards already exist can be followed, while in software few
such standards or handbooks are regularly used by practitioners.

But there is a second related issue.  In hard engineering, I think there is
sometimes an additional legal or bureaucratic layer of society that
tries to keep users from abusing the thing beyond its specs.  For example
a fire marshall might clear a theater if too many people occupy the balcony,
or trucks above a certain weight might be prohibited from using a roadway.

Right off hand, it is hard to think of software situations where some
quasi-judicial body steps in and says, "Your corporation cannot put
that many employee records in that database," or "Sorry, that problem
is to big for that spreadsheet."

Oh, wait.  I just thought of one.  Years ago, a friend of mine who was
engaged in high-powered cancer research needed a simple t-test to
test significance, so he wrote a basic program on his Apple, a program
that I am sure any of us could write blindfolded.  Science magazine
rejected his article until he computed the t-statistic using one of the
approved stat packages, which included SPSS, BMDP, and SAS, as I recall.