Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!wor-mein!pete
From: pete@wor-mein.UUCP (Pete Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Cynic's Guide to Software Engineering, part 4
Message-ID: <1354@wor-mein.UUCP>
Date: 20 Apr 88 16:22:29 GMT
References: <2677@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> <3396@zeus.TEK.COM> <1865@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: pete@wor-mein.UUCP (Pete Turner)
Distribution: na
Organization: Quantum Medical Systems, Issaquah WA
Lines: 20

In article <1865@ssc-vax.UUCP> dickey@ssc-vax.UUCP (Frederick J Dickey) writes:
>It strikes me as interesting that most of the software engineers I know would,
>if given the opportunity, prefer to work on the development of SE tools rather
>than work on some application program. I am certainly sympathetic to this view,

Perhaps software engineers show such strong interest in working on software
tools because they have experienced or sense a lack of the tools needed to 
do software engineering.

I find that a very large proportion of the time that I spend on any project
is devoted to developing the tools I need, because existing tools are too
limited - they impose unreasonable preconditions on the methodology to be
used.  This is a problem which may never be solved entirely, since I see little
evidence so far that anyone has much of a handle on what software engineering 
is. 

I would suggest that software engineers, and potential software engineers, 
make good use of their Master's thesis effort when they apply it to an area 
which they will probably only be able to address in an ad hoc manner 
in the "real" world of tight schedules and the bottom line.