Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cica!iuvax!copper!raja
From: raja@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Raja Sooriamurthi)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: sys & lang standardization?
Message-ID: <raja.658980120@copper>
Date: 19 Nov 90 02:02:00 GMT
References: <obEuQP200VAC01XuVn@andrew.cmu.edu> <27318@cs.yale.edu> <raja.658789751@copper> <andy.658949884@xwkg>
Sender: news@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Lines: 44

andy@xwkg.Icom.Com (Andrew H. Marrinson) writes:

|raja@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Raja Sooriamurthi) writes:


|>Would you be satisfied in still driving a Ford model T? As advances in
|>engine design, aerodynamics, electronics etc came about newer and
|>newer cars were produced; some meant for racing some meant to take the
|>family shopping.

|Sure, cars have changed, but I think the previous poster was more
|concerned about stability in his interface to the computer.  That
|aspect of cars has been relatively stable for years.  Even the
|adoption of something like automatic transmissions led to only fairly
|small changes in how you use a car (if you switched :-).

|Car analogies never worked from me.  In fact most analogies for
|computers used in discussions like this fall apart rather quickly.
|Computers seem to be fundamentally different from mundane things like
|cars.  I think it is because they are fundamentally more mutable.
|Cars don't have software.  (No, they don't.  You're thinking of
|firmware.)  When the user of a computer is a programmer, he can
|radically change the way he thinks about a machine by switching
|programmer languages.  There is no analogy for that with a car.

|I think because computers are by definition mutable, the ways in which
|we use them will always be changing and expanding.  After all, you can
|change them by expending only time, no raw materials required!  Maybe
|a good analogy for the computer (rather than cars) is a lump of clay.
|Asking with computer systems, languages, etc. is like asking if
|sculptors will ever run out of things to do with a lump of clay.  I
|think the answer to both questions is no.

The reason for my analogy seems to have been misunderstood. The
automobile example wasn't meant to compare learning to drive a new car
with learning a new programming language. It was meant to expose the
evolutionary nature of technology. As you had pointed out the
interface to driving has remained more or less the same. Agreed.
But that wasn't my point. The original poster enquired about the
stability of software systems. My reply was technology is never stable
(the car example) and trying to stabilize it is not the way to
progress.

- Raja