Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!uh2
From: UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Development vs Engineering
Message-ID: <90292.133839UH2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 90 17:38:39 GMT
References: <5682@stpstn.UUCP> <1624@dschub.dsc.com>
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 20

In article <1624@dschub.dsc.com>, cdk@neptune.dsc.com (Colin Kelley) says:

>- Software is where you throw all the concepts which haven't been fleshed-out
>  yet!  I'm not the only one who has wished that software development were
>  as easy as putting together TTL chip building blocks.  But if the needs are
>  well-understood enough (and unlikely to change every week for the next year)
>  we _would_ put the software into hardware.  The problem is that software
>  can be changed on a minute's notice, so it encourages techniques and designs
>  which depend on this...


I agree.  Imagine this taken to the ridiculous extrmeme.  Some programmers
develp a killer application in a language they invent.  When finished, they
announce that they are finished, and hand the whole thing over to the hardware
engineers.  The engineers then try to build a computer that implements the
language, and runs the application.  Meanwhile, the programmers complain
about how long it takes the hardware engineers to do the work, and blame
them for all the weird problems that arise.

                                           lee