Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!pyrnj!mirror!xanth!kent From: kent@xanth.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: software engineering Message-ID: <772@xanth.UUCP> Date: Wed, 1-Apr-87 06:53:56 EST Article-I.D.: xanth.772 Posted: Wed Apr 1 06:53:56 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 4-Apr-87 09:39:37 EST References: <340@ndsuvax.UUCP> <141@tijc02.UUCP> <1285@rti-sel.UUCP> <4414@utah-cs.UUCP> <573@kaiser.UUCP> Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) Distribution: world Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va. Lines: 79 Summary: Let's merge MIS, instead of foliating SE In article <573@kaiser.UUCP> tla@kaiser.UUCP (Terry Anderson) writes: >Several recent articles have suggested that the time has come to >separate Computer SCIENCE from Computer ENGINEERING. I have some >concerns that the administrative and academic separation will lead >to an undesirable conceptual and communication separation not unlike >that that has developed between business oriented data processing >and computer science. In the later case vocabularies, conceptual >models, and solutions (even to problems that are shared) have grown >apart. [...a few more cogent words about the bad effects of the MIS and CS split, then turns to the proposed split of Software Engineering (SE) from CS.] I have a radical response (I usually do ;-). I think that the split of MIS from CS has had very bad effects. Rather than further dividing a house already divided, I think the existing split should be deliberately mended. (Deliberately as in: "with all deliberate speed".) I base this on my own experience (a statistical sample of one ;-), so forgive the anecdotal approach. After 20 years of scientific programming, the vicissitudes of keeping a pair of spouses in widely different fields employed led me to take a job with a business data processing shop of 200 programmers. This had two immediate effects. They found out from me that there was life after COBOL (yes, I _can_ use it myself), and I found out from them just what it meant to maintain 6.5 million source lines of code (Virginia's largest private employer shall remain otherwise unidentified, but it's a BIG operation.) I was the only person in the shop with formal training in software engineering, and a true dedication to its methods and principles. I was also (barring a few new hires) the only one there who had neither instincts nor experience in applying it where it is really needed, in the large job shop. They had _excellent_ software configuration control, quality assurance, test and integration, planning and management, training, a pretty good _paper_ tracking system, and were generally successful. I got to help plan and implement a mainframe vendor change from a 36 to a 32 bit machine, data conversion, code conversion, 4th generation language adoption, a new DBMS, and lots more. Very exciting times for a FORTRAN retread! I learned more from them (they _outnumbered_ me!) than I was able to return. Pertinent to this discussion, I learned that software engineering, no caps, is working just fine out there in the trenches, among folks who invent it for themselves as they go along, out of necessity and a few useful articles in the business software rags. But, when the marriage and then the job went bust, and I came back to college, I found that the SE types do not have what they consider a single example of a major system successfully constructed using SE methods -- you know, on time, under budget, meeting or exceeding all specs; the holy grail. The place I worked was sure interested in keeping costs in line, and had watched the data processing part of their budget grow without seeming bound, but it was attributable more to increasing computerization of manual systems, than to problems of software management. So, I would like to propose that CS, SE, and MIS need to be back under one roof, so that the experiences of the workplace can be joined with the efforts of academe, and we start learning what the other knows again. SE seems mordibund to me (but maybe I'm just impatient ;-), perhaps a bit of hybred vigor would get things moving toward useable, realistic methods and tools. Having the CS/SE undergraduates co-oping in a shop where code comes in boxcar loads of tapes would do wonders for their understanding of the need for controls and productivity enhancers and innovative communication methods. _I_ write 10,000 line chunks of code; tossing one off as a project now, in Ada, for fun. But don't expect a million line suite out of me or any mortal; that is the level where SE, when it works, will be in its proper area of application, and business MIS is where those code suites exist now, alive and ready for study and improvement. Comments welcome; flames at your own risk. ( Napalm? Check. Igniter? Check. Return address? Check. ;-) Kent. <> (kent@xanth.UUCP) Arrgh! Dawn. Back to the crypt....