When
systems get large, a discplined team finds that 'programming' becomes one of
their least time-consuming tasks. Principled Software Engineering involves
very little actual programming, because that is (by far) the easiest
part.
Note
that I fully agree with your statement that for SE " the unresolved issues
are often human ones, individual (inabilities, errors, working environment,
etc) and social (communication, natural language, politics, etc).". On
teams of people with sufficient technical background, that is most definitely
the case. On teams that are largely made up of ``programmers'', technical
issues can be a big problem too.
Jacques
PS: I
am eagerly awaiting that next PPIG newsletter, your work sounds quite
interesting.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sebastian Jekutsch
Sent: March 10, 2005 9:37 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: PPIG discuss: Commercial reality (was: Competence (was: About natural naming))Ruven,thanks for your valuable mediation. I studied computer science and therefore learned about software engineering (SE) as a technical matter: using and transforming languages, following a defined and pre-planned process, or reusing successfully applied software architectures. These are the few success stories of SE but what strikes everybodies mind is that the unresolved issues are often human ones, individual (inabilities, errors, working environment, etc) and social (communication, natural language, politics, etc).Psychology of Programming (PoP) caught my interest because as a Ph.D. I'd like to study human error in programming. (You can read about it in the next PPIG newsletter.) The first impression was that PoP has only been studying "toy" problems often using an unknown setting. That's no criticism; I believe it a prerequisite to get any useful result at all. Especially - and that's quite different to computer science - because PoP always seem to try to build a detailed model of why humans do it the way they do. For professional software engineering it would be sufficient to observe behavior (with significance to some degree, but with high external validity), not to explain it. That's for my first impression, in case you were interested in. :-)Could you please explain the difference between PoP and PoSE? What are the open questions which are (usually) not tackled by PoP, and why? Is there some relation to the difference in studying novices and experts, or to the difference in studying coding/code comprehension and requirements elicitation?Sebastian-----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Im Auftrag von Ruven E Brooks
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 10. M�rz 2005 14:50
An: [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Betreff: RE: PPIG discuss: Commercial reality (was: Competence (was: About natural naming))
The discussion of commercial issues arise because some of us have a great deal of trouble understanding the
relevance of some of the research being discussed. A large part of the postings seem to be about teaching introductory
programming; others appear directed at minor coding issues that are unlikely to have significant impact.
To the extent that psychology of programming is APPLIED psychology, relevance to real world situations is what's important.
Furthermore, many of the important areas, writing/interpreting requirements, testing, etc. appear wide open in terms of
opportunities for research.
Perhaps, we ought to start a second discussion group, psychology of software development, that focuses on psychological issues
and research that arise in professional and commercial software development.
Ruven Brooks
Derek M Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]03/09/2005 05:29 PM
To: [email protected]
cc:
Subject: RE: PPIG discuss: Commercial reality (was: Competence (was: About natural naming))
Walter,
>Isn't the first P in PPIG for Psychology?
Indeed it is. Not wishing to tread on any more nerves
than I might already have trodden on, but the interests
behind the current thread (i.e., the realities of commercial
software development) are driven by a different set
of priorities than the interests of many of those on this list.
I don't see the psychology aspect of some of the threads I
see on the list and the only explanation I have for them is
"oh, that's an academic thing".
derek
--
Derek M Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667
Knowledge Software Ltd mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Applications Standards Conformance Testing http://www.knosof.co.uk
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