Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!haven.umd.edu!mimsy!tove.cs.umd.edu!cml From: cml@tove.cs.umd.edu (Christopher Lott) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: bridge building (was Re: Documenting OO Systems) Message-ID: <33407@mimsy.umd.edu> Date: 23 Apr 91 12:40:38 GMT References: Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu Reply-To: cml@tove.cs.umd.edu (Christopher Lott) Distribution: na Organization: The University of Maryland Dept of Computer Science Lines: 29 In article jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) writes: >.... until the 1800's, HALF of all bridges built fell down. Why? Because the >principles of civil engineering were not well-understood, and so much of it >was empirical and artistic: more craft than science. It is different now, but >I bet for a while there were members of the old guard who protested loudly >that civil engineering was not a science and never could be...just like hackers >proclaim loudly now. uh, half? But I don't know any better. However, I DO dispute your claim that the bridge-builders of yore claimed that their craft would never be a science. They were developing the science of statics through trial and error. We're using trial and error, but I'm not convinced we're developing a science. The high level of human creativity in every software enterprise as compared to the creativity involved in a static structure like a bridge makes me (IMHO) confident you're comparing tomatoes and avocadoes. On a positive note, I think that bridge builders of today are confident that there are techniques developed by others that work, and they are happy to (perhaps required to) use these techniques. Compare this situation with software, where we have a multitude of techniques, some quite rudimentary and well accepted, yet there are developers who play cowboy and ignore the helpful work done by others. Either they suffer from NIH syndrome or are simply ill informed. What can be done to reach the ill-informed practictioner? chris... -- Christopher Lott \/ Dept of Comp Sci, Univ of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 cml@cs.umd.edu /\ 4122 AV Williams Bldg 301 405-2721