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From: Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: recap so far
Message-ID: <1990Jul19.154906.20518@newcastle.ac.uk>
Date: 19 Jul 90 15:49:06 GMT
References: <1990Jul10.134226.22459@iti.org> <268462df> <39400111@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <31558@cup.portal.com> <27199@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Sender: news@newcastle.ac.uk
Organization: Computing Laboratory, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK NE17RU
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In article <27199@athertn.Atherton.COM> mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) writes:
>
>                          ...  In all disciplines management views
>their job as making tradeoffs between time, quality and functionality.
>This is as true in hardware as software.
>                                     ... Engineers don't like to shave
>functionality because it is the thing that they want to do--that's why
>they entered the trade.

Shaving functionality in software *can* mean reducing the available
options; it usually means producing something that doesn't always work.
It is the non-linearity between the size of the bug, and the size of
the resulting error that management seems to find difficult to cope with.
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 Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk      Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
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 "Algebraic expression is something that is to be surpassed..."