Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!tada
From: tada@athena.mit.edu (Michael Zehr)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: hackers
Keywords: software
Message-ID: <9324@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 19 Feb 89 00:09:49 GMT
References: <899@wpi.wpi.edu>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: tada@athena.mit.edu (Michael Zehr)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 38

In article <899@wpi.wpi.edu> lfoard@wpi.wpi.edu (Lawrence C Foard) writes:
>I would like to present the opposite side of the argument about hackers.
>I generally program in the hacker style. i.e.
>No flowcharts or writting code out on paper.
>Use comments only where needed.
>Allow programs to evolve.
>[...]
>For example a typical project:
>Person needs a program to do something. Quickly write code to do it. Show it
>to them and ask what they would like added to it, suggest things that might be
>useful and could be easily done. Repeat until satisfied. Clean up and optimize
>the final code. 
>[...]
>I have seen figures from the software industry and they are abismal, only 10%
>of programs are ever successfully finished. Most hackers I know have from 75%
>to 90% success. 

For the type of programming you're doing, that sounds perfectly
reasonable.  But that certainly isn't the "software industry."  Have you
compared the success rates of hackers completing a 10 man-year project
vs. non-hackers completing the same project?  

Most software projects can not be done by a single person.  They're
simply too big.  Saving time by not writing things down only works if
one person can remember the entire structure of the program.  And what
if the client insists on a functional spec before paying money, so they
know what they're getting?

The software industry does use the method you describe -- it's called
proto-typing.  You take a couple of months and put together something
that has most of the front-end of the system, and a bit of the back end,
but without any real data or whatever.  Then you let the client look at it and
see if that's what they want.

i'm sure there will be lots of other replies, so i'll end this one
now...

-michael j zehr