Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!fluke!kelpie
From: kelpie@tc.fluke.COM (Tony Garland)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: The De-Sovietization of the Software Industry
Message-ID: <1990Sep13.152836.24228@tc.fluke.COM>
Date: 13 Sep 90 15:28:36 GMT
References: <1183@ashton.UUCP>
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 27

In article <1183@ashton.UUCP>, tomr@ashtate (Tom Rombouts) writes:
> Buried amid BYTE's excellent 15th anniversay issue (page 252) is
> a short piece by Lee Felsenstein that I have decied to excerpt without
> permission for the benefit of this group:
> 
> "What do high-level languages get
> you?....He said "...you can use cheaper programmers."  And so that has been
> the development of the software industry as I have observed it.
> 

    This would be true if we were really using high-level languages.

    Languages such as c++ are examples where this most certainly will not 
    be true.  Try taking a "cheap programmer" and getting something
    useful out of c++.  Experience has shown that with such languages
    "the strong get going and the weak get lost".

    Of course there are those that would argue that c++ isn't really
    a higher-level language.  Maybe the creators of the language
    had alterior motives (long term job security for software developers)
    at heart?

    Sorry, I couldn't resist! ;-}
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Garland  -  John Fluke Mfg. Co. Inc., P.O. Box C9090, Everett, WA  98206
kelpie@tc.fluke.COM    |    voice  (206) 356-5268    |    fax  (206) 348 2661