Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!hsi!stpstn!cox
From: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Request for War Stories
Message-ID: <5428@stpstn.UUCP>
Date: 4 Aug 90 01:58:00 GMT
References: <284@txsil.lonestar.org>
Reply-To: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Organization: Stepstone
Lines: 31

In article <284@txsil.lonestar.org> marc@txsil.lonestar.org (Marc Rettig) writes:
>I am working on the first installment of what will be a quarterly column in
>the Communications of the ACM, entitled "The Practical Progammer." The
>column will describe ideas and techniques that have worked in practice.
>Each installment will be accompanied by a sidebar called "Programming in
>Black and Blue" that describes another approach to the same problem that
>failed miserably.

Although no doubt your Black and Blue column will be most entertaining, I 
do note that our field is too inclined to savor anecdotal evidence that 
today's process-centered paradigm has led us into crisis, and inadequately
inclined to draw conclusions that might lead to a better paradigm.

I'm remined of a journal for 16th century astonomers printing amusing
stories about their latest failure to make the Ptolemaic model conform
to observations of nature, and neglecting to conclude that the Ptolemaic
model was itself the problem. One can even imagine the production of, and
solemn agreement with, Black and Blue columns and articles like Brooks' "No
Silver Bullet; Essence vs Accidents in Astronomy".

I go into this analogy and the need for a paradigm shift in greater detail 
in an article for Byte magazine, October 1990, titled "There *is* a silver 
bullet".  To paraphrase, a silver bullet does exist, but it is *not* a 
technology. It is a paradigm shift; replacement of today's process-centered 
model with a product-centered model; centering on a marketplace in
interchangeable software components instead of as today, on languages
and methodologies.
-- 

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