Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!apple!voder!pyramid!athertn!Atherton.COM!dlw From: dlw@Atherton.COM (David Williams) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Not engineers Message-ID: <35061@athertn.Atherton.COM> Date: 19 Apr 91 20:28:45 GMT References: <1991Apr17.144402.16637@sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM> Sender: news@athertn.Atherton.COM Reply-To: dlw@Atherton.COM (David Williams) Organization: Atherton Technology -- Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 67 In article <1991Apr17.144402.16637@sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM>, jim@sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM (Jim Nicholsen) writes: >In an article referencing "Documenting OO Systems" Steve Savitzky wrote "Perhaps we should start borrowing our terminology from the arts: "producer" for the person who puts up the money and controls the budget, "director" for the one with overall artistic control, "designer" for the one who creates the look and feel of the project, and "writer" for the ones doing the programming and technical writing (hopefully mostly the same people" >This is the very idea I have begun to discuss (albeit unsuccessfully >thus far :->) in my organization. My idea came from Walt Disney who >transfered the titles from the movie industry that he understood, to >his "new" amusement park as it was built. His problem was to communicate >his expectations to the staff, and he found that he couldn't achieve >the level of communication he needed within the conventional amusement >park titles. (The preceding from a management seminar I attended from >the Walt Disney staff). [Other portions deleted] >I open the floor for discussion. (i.e. asbestos suit is on :->) Actually I heard Ted Nelson (of Hypertext, Xanadu, Dream Machines, etc) first propose this idea at a seminar/consulting gig we had him give to us while some of us now at Atherton were working for Hewlett Packard. Not only that, his point was that in the early days of filmmaking the cameraman was supreme and the main focus of films was JUST pointing a camera a scene and letting it run. It wasn't till DIRECTORS came on the scene that movie making evolved into what is is today. The cameraman was just into the "technical side" of film making and did not "FOCUS" (pardon the pun, but how appropriate) on what he was shooting and how to involve his customer (the audience) with what he was showing them (I would have included, what he was "trying to get across, but early cinema was not that advanced). Now map the Software Engineer in the role of cameraman (knows how to work the "equipment of the trade", but should this person be designing the piece?). Some rare individual "engineers" actually evolve into Directors or scriptwriters, but most just like bit twiddling for bit twiddlings sake. Ted showed the opening sequence to some of the Disney films and showed the micro planning involved in the films "User Interface" that actually draws the audience INTO the story being told. It is sometimes very subtle, but once you realize what filmakers and cinematographers today now do you realize just how powerful their techniques are. His point was to show how another industry conceives, plans and designs their User Interface and how the software industry might do the same if they were smart [and it was his contention that Arcade Video Game designeers knew how to do this....visit a local arcade...note that you actually pay money to try out the product and continually feed it money to use it if you find it interesting to use and notice the SIZE and content of the USER MANUAL . So mapping the metaphor of the Film industry onto the Software industry might yield some very easy to use and enjoyable products that are also productive. David --------------------------------------------------------------------- #define flame_sheild "I know you are, but what am I?" --------------------------------------------------------------------- David Williams -- dlw@atherton.com -- (408) 734-9822 x291 Atherton Technology -- The CASE Repository/IPSE 1333 Bordeaux Drive Sunnyvale, CA 94089 AIX,SunOS,Ultrix,VMS *