Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!scotth
From: scotth@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Scott Henninger)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CASE - The poster can't tell if there are clothes or not.
Keywords: "CASE rubbish" rubbish.
Message-ID: <22112@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 11 Jun 90 18:59:35 GMT
References: <37538@genrad.UUCP> <20129@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: scotth@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Scott Henninger)
Organization: University of Colorado at Boulder
Lines: 44

In article 3770 crm@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Charlie Martin) writes:

> This may in fact be one of the best reasons for using CASE tools as
> they currently exist; DOD 2167, 2167A, and Son-of-2167A when it comes
> will almost certainly require mountains of paper documenting the
> design, the testing, the testing of the testing, and so on.  This has
> nothing toi do with software, little to do with the Gvt per se, and
> everything to do with Congressionally mandated procurement practices. 
> It certainly isn't the CASE community's fault that these practices are
> less than reasonable.  But when one must develop for the Gvt, one must
> meet 2167A; doing so can be *very* expensive.
> 
> [...]
> 
> CASE tools are no use; they just help you produce a mountain of paper:
> but if part of the task is producing a mountain of paper, as it often
> is, then your claim seems flawed.

This is true in practice today.  But the point for discussion should be:
is this reasonable?  Just because the government mandates inefficient
documentation methods, should we concentrate only on these methods, or
should we strive to streamline this process?

> The worst problem with the perception of software engineering as a
> topic within computer science is that so many people will claim that
> something or other is better without making measurements.

I call it "armchair design", and it is definitely a problem.  

In fact, it reminds me of the state of psychology around the turn of the
century when most studies of cognition centered around introspective
accounts.  The problem they found was that there were no common grounds
on which they could argue the veracity of their theories; leading
researchers to jump in the opposite direction - behaviorism.

It is now generally held that a mix of both behaviorism and
introspective accounts and theories are needed to study cognition.  The
same probably holds true for computer science; at least it will be
necessary before a true science can emerge that is more than the
description of "neat" tools and techniques.


-- Scott
   scotth@boulder.colorado.edu