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From: ld231782@longs.LANCE.ColoState.EDU (Lawrence Detweiler)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Is Programming R&D or Production?
Message-ID: <7595@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Date: 27 Jun 90 04:37:44 GMT
References: <3040@psueea.UUCP> <30852@cup.portal.com> <102100011@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <5241@stpstn.UUCP>
Sender: news@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU
Reply-To: ld231782@longs.LANCE.ColoState.EDU (Lawrence Detweiler)
Organization: Engineering College, Colorado State University
Lines: 30

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>Actually I've always thought the best analogy for software development
>is movie production. It shares many similarities.

One of which is that some is B-grade and some is art.  Unfortunately,
what determines the success of a program or a movie is not based solely
on its internal (the code) and external (the interface) aesthetic appeal.  
They are vulnerable to the degrading effects of preoccupation with the 
bottom line.

If software development is like movie making, I have had the thought 
that  programs are exactly opposite to Hollywood sets.  A set has a 
flashy, majestic appearance from the front, but from behind there is 
nothing substantial.  In a program, few have any idea of the subtle 
and  magnificent webs of intricate interactions that lie between the 
choreography of twirling electrons in its wires to the parade of 
photons meeting our eyes.  What complexities lie in a program that
is mistaken by the user to be lying dormant!  A program is an
inside-out set.  The only similarity between the two is that the
viewer is blissfully unaware of some astonishing aspect.

Of course, the ideal programs of the future _will_ be more like a movie 
sets, so that my standard of Excellence in Software can be more
readily achieved:

When the users say "there's more?!" and the programmers say "that's it?!"


ld231782@longs.LANCE.ColoState.EDU