Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ames!amdahl!pacbell!pbhyf!rsp
From: rsp@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Steve Price)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Structured Programming
Message-ID: <4677@pbhyf.PacBell.COM>
Date: 10 Feb 89 18:14:42 GMT
References: <18291@adm.BRL.MIL> <9574@smoke.BRL.MIL> <226@algor2.UUCP>
Reply-To: rsp@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Steve Price)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 63

In article <226@algor2.UUCP> jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler) writes:
[stuff omitted]
>Programming standards and code
>review committees attract all the jerks trying to angle their way from the
>ranks of us hackers into the Vice-Presidency of the Division.  While these
>characters are deceiving themselves into believing they have a career path,
>they cause everyone else a good deal of trouble. 
Unfortunately, this rings loudly of truth.

>"Professionalism" in our business is a double-edged term.  When hackers use it
>they mean things like writing code according to standards agreed on by those
>of our fellows whose competence we respect.   The word is often perverted to
>justify whatever rinky-dink rule has emanated from the top.
And the "top" usually doesn't know anything about programming structured or
un.  But the push for code standards and professionalism is usually an
honest effort by management to do good.  In my corporate experiences, the
upper management announces the need for quality and professional standards,
but relies on the data processing professionals to set the standards for
the various languages, operating system uses, etc.  Since management is 
usually uninformed about this, they have no other choice.  So when standards
get abused and used as political clubs, it is not simply a case of "management"
abusing DP professionals.  As Jeff implies, there are traitors among us.

>Professionalism would mean we hackers set our own standards of ethics and
>competence, and membership.
Sounds good to me.  How do we do it?

>I believe in Structured Programming in the sense that a programmer should
>write code to be read by others according to standards accepted by the best of
>the programmers.
There is something of a logical circle here, since some pre-existing standards
are implied.  How else do we know who "the best of the programmers" are?
Determining how to make this judgement might help us see what standards we
really do use and whether they should be upgraded or scrapped.

> Structured Programming
>is often the buzzword for an attempt to routinize and deskill programming work
>to reinforce the control of hierarchy over the programming process--separate
>from and sometimes different from, improving quality.  
Correct.  This is consistent with the needs of a hierarchical political and
economic system (which we hackers serve).  Deskilling workers at every level,
starting at the factory floor and moving up to the middle-level managerial
class, is the great force now at work in American business.  The skill
and talents of a few at the top are to control the desired outputs of those
unskilled workers (or better yet, automated nonhuman systems) below.
We programmers are the shock troops and engineering corp in this great
war of deskilling.  The plan is for us to automate ourselves last.
(Some people think Utopia will result from this.  Others don't.)

>In terms of quality,
>innovation procedes from the bottom, and, alas, often from desks with dirty
>coffee cups.
Yes and that is what keeps the managerial hierarchy from becoming Almighty.
I wash my cup once a week, whether it needs....


Steve Price
pacbell!pbhyf!rsp
(415)823-1951

===========================================================================
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the expressor.
===========================================================================