Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!hsi!stpstn!cox
From: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CASE - The Emperor has no clothes on!
Message-ID: <5212@stpstn.UUCP>
Date: 15 Jun 90 21:39:25 GMT
References: <7486@fy.sei.cmu.edu> <1990Jun13.101122.15604@axion.bt.co.uk> <7527@fy.sei.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Organization: Stepstone
Lines: 35

>In article <1990Jun13.101122.15604@axion.bt.co.uk> pyoung@zaphod.axion.bt.co.uk writes:
>>From article <7486@fy.sei.cmu.edu>, by bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson):
>>> How much has bridge building changed since the first bridge was built? Sure
>>> the techniques and materials have changed dramatically, but a bridge of
>>> today would still be recognized by a builder of centuries past.  The same
>>> for buildings.  
>>This is not intended as a personal assault on Bruce Benson, but I
>
>Not to worry ;-).
>
>>can't help wondering if building bridges is an appropriate analogy for
>>what we are doing.

Its a beaufiful example, if we make one simple change. Instead of building
them from a well-understood, reproducible materials like wood and iron,
imagine that every bridge-builder felt free to *invent* his own materials
from first principles for each bridge.  Lemme see now, the Brooklyn Bridge
is kinda cute, but iron is kinda heavy, so I'll build the next one from
breadsticks instead. And the next one from spaghetti. And the next one from...

The paradigm shift that I've been calling the software industrial revolution
involves changing our reluctance to build up a robust marketplace in 
well-understood materials with reproducible properties (Stacks and Queues
and ScrollBars and CustomerObjects) and begin building from these instead
of reinventing everything from first principles.

This involves a shift in focus quite analogous to Copernican shift that put
the sun in the center of the universe rather than the earth. It involves
relinquishing our belief that programmers and their *tools* (languages) are
where we should be focusing, and instead focusing on what it will take to
create and maintain a robust software components marketplace.
-- 

Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875
The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482