Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!ur-tut!msir_ltd
From: msir_ltd@ur-tut (Mark Sirota)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: American Programmer
Message-ID: <1434@ur-tut.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 88 18:23:49 GMT
References: <555@psu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: msir_ltd@tut.cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota)
Organization: Univ. of Rochester, Computing Center
Lines: 26

In article <555@psu-cs.UUCP> warren@psu-cs.UUCP (Warren Harrison) writes:
> Perhaps what is most amusing is the universal agreement that "management"
> (whoever they are) is to blame. ... Yourdon points out that the average
> programmer isn't all that great anyway, and should share at least part of
> the blame.  This is no doubt due to the great influx of people who wanted
> secure, high paying jobs in the early 1980's, but who really weren't cut
> out for writing software (I must have taught 500 of them from 1979 to
> 1984, at various universities from Missouri to Oregon).
>
> While I agree that management must share the blame on the general state of
> things, we (ie, programmers) have to bear some of the burden.

I dunno who's been saying that it's management's fault, I fully disagree.
There are far too many bad programmers out there.  Some of them are really
bad.  I've had to work UNDER some of them, since I only work summers.

Some of the software you see out there boggles the mind - how many times
have you said, "God, I would never have released anything like that!"

Of course, part of the problem may be that I consider myself a good
programmer - and so does everyone else.  It's hard for non-programmers to
tell who's better.  In that respect, it is management's fault.  They're
the ones doing the hiring...
-- 

Mark Sirota
 msir_ltd%tut.cc.rochester.edu@cs.rochester.edu (rochester!ur-tut!msir_ltd)