Xref: utzoo comp.object:3277 comp.software-eng:5424
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!cci632!ritcsh!ultb!ritvax.isc.rit.edu!jrj1047
From: jrj1047@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (JARRETT, JR)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Documenting OO Systems
Message-ID: <1991Apr18.013537.27947@isc.rit.edu>
Date: 18 Apr 91 04:30:45 GMT
References: <jls.670709095@rutabaga> <3201:Apr705:40:4591@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <STEVE.91Apr15150739@diana.Advansoft.COM> <1991Apr16.124522.16592@dg-rtp.dg.com>
Sender: news@isc.rit.edu (USENET News System)
Reply-To: jrj1047@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Distribution: na
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Lines: 20
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4
Nntp-Posting-Host: vaxf

In article <1991Apr16.124522.16592@dg-rtp.dg.com>, cole@farmhand.rtp.dg.com 
(Bill Cole) writes...
>|> I think Knuth was absolutely right when he called his book "The Art of
>|> Computer Programming".  <stuff deleted>
> 
> If we were strictly engineers,
>we could down a catalog of routines and, by cleverly sticking them
>together, build a program.  Each programmer has a catalog of routines
>they've either learned or built, it's true, and you could argue that
>this constitutes a form of engineering catalog that EEs or CEs use to 
>build computers or buildings.  The difference is that programmers are
>tasked to build new components if they can't find one in the own catalog
>of program components.  How many CEs build bridges out of self-designed
>components?  
>                             

Thinking of software development more as art than engineering, this process
seems more akin to working out different brush strokes on canvas, or 
mastering different styles of writing.  They work, unmodified in a lot of
cases, but sometimes need to change.