Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!hsi!stpstn!cox From: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Reuse and Abstraction (was: reu Message-ID: <5123@stpstn.UUCP> Date: 27 May 90 15:42:39 GMT References: <4979@stpstn.UUCP> <102100009@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <80449@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <19614@duke.cs.duke.edu> <80685@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <19760@duke.cs.duke.edu> <80884@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <19820@duke.cs.duke.edu> <80903@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Reply-To: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) Organization: Stepstone Lines: 30 In article <80903@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Bruce Weide writes: >In summary, then, what's the resistance to formal specification? > >>Political problem: Let's say I as a researcher determine that I want to >>build up a really good reusable non-trivial library. I spend a year >>(maybe that little) developing the specs and implementing it. Where do >>I publish? How much tenure credit will I get for it? > >Good point. I wish I knew where to publish this stuff. If you have >any suggestions let us know. If I were so inclined and had a willing >venture capitalist lined up, I might be tempted to bypass the academic >routine and just start designing and implementing reusable components >and sell them. But I don't think that's in the cards, so publishing >seems to be essential. Thomas Kuhn's 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' should answer your question. The academic priesthood is deeply vested in the cottage industry approach. What you're proposing is a paradigm shift (Kuhn's term) or a software industrial revolution (mine). Although revolutionaries may (or may not) win in the end, the priesthood will hardly make it easy for you to gore their sacred cows. Re: concrete suggestions for how to publish such stuff, may I suggest that commercial enterprises like Stepstone, ParcPlace Systems, and Digitalk are in fact vehicles for publishing reusable code. Of course, the 'only' benefits we'd offer would be hard, cold cash, not academic benedictions like tenure. -- Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875 The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482