Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!infopiz!athertn!hemlock!mcgregor
From: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Art vs. Engineering
Message-ID: <35177@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Date: 7 May 91 16:44:51 GMT
References: <1991May6.165902.2116@ssd.kodak.com>
Sender: news@athertn.Atherton.COM
Reply-To: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Atherton Technology -- Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 58

In article <1991May6.165902.2116@ssd.kodak.com>, nichols@ssd.kodak.com
(Tim Nichols (37894)) writes:
...(many good comments)...

> Software Scientists will fill the artisans role by continually pushing
> the envelope.  They will be the technology innovators.

> Software Engineers will apply the state-of-the-art technology to
> products and processes with precision and quality.

> Software Technicians will be the hands-on support; the programmers.
> The highly skilled work horses who prototype and build the dreams and
> designs of the scientists and engineers.

> I see no reason to expect that the evolution of the discipline of
> software will differ markedly from the evolution of other technological
> disciplines.  To cling to this notion of software being somehow
> different from its sibling fields is sophistry.  It is a vanity
> unbecoming of professionals.

I don't know if I disagree or not, but I am not quite so certain as you that
Software as a technological discipline will wind up looking more like
traditional engineering.  At least one other possible path seems possible.
At the end of the last century, filmaking was a very technical discipline.
You had to be familiar with photo chemistry, lights, optics, the motion
picture cameras, and the projectors.  Filmakers were largely very
technical people.
Today, filmaking is still a very technical discipline, various sound
systems, types of lenses, camera equipment, complex film developing
techniques plus special effects require as much technical know how as
ever.  Yet the many engineers, and technicians are not in service of
Film Scientists, but
rather in service of Artistic Directors. 

There are many kinds of software, and it may well be that different
parts of it go different ways.  I could easily see systems that support
analytical chemistry instruments, or systems that calculate trajectories
going in the
direction you describe, and at the same time, I can see systems aimed at
increasing the capabilities of the average office worker to remember, to
coordinate with others, etc. going the filmaking direction.

This is an unpremeditated thought, but the difference may have to do
with processing data vs. use of information as communication.  The
entertainment industries, broadcast radio & TV, and print media are all
dominated by the
alternative model that I mentioned.  The Artistic Directors aim at
maximizing the effectiveness of their communications to human
individuals.  The Scientists aim at maximizing their effective analysis
of data.  I am not sure that this
is right even after considering it, but I'm not sure it is wrong either.
We may be experiencing something similar to the debates that occur when
behavioral scientists meet with physical scientists and try to describe what 
"science" is.  The vary nature of the topics of study encourages a
discrepancy in what they perceive science to be.
 
Scott McGregor
mcgregor@atherton.com