Responding to yourself may be bad form, but I'll indulge anyway... I should add that there are many more opportunities to apply engineering (not process) principles to software development than we often acknowledge. I don't mean to sound like a broken record (at least not too much!) but one of the things that frustrates about VistA is thqat reading the source, you see that people have done essentially the same thing over, and over, and over again. Let's think about industrial engineering for a moment. Was the assembly line a necessary innovation when it comes to building automobiles? Could we have clothing without the cotton gin? Of course, the answer to both questions is yes, but the process of manufacturing automobiles or clothing would have been much more tedious and labor intensive. Howq about n example from civil engineering? The mere existence of the Golden Gate bridge demonstrates that large structures can be built with hand tools. But we never build bridges that way today. Why not?
--- Greg Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > That's been my experience, too. What I find especially telling is > that > my local Barnes and Noble has two section: one, labelled > "Programming" > has mostly books about, well, programming; another, labelled > "Software > Engineering" has mostly books about process. > > I agree with Kevin that software engineering SHOULD NOT be any > different from other types of engineering, but unfortunately, what we > call software engineering is often more of an approach to management > than anything else. Now, don't get me wrong: I believe management is > important, but there is a void thaqt is not being filled here, and > that > is the application of technological, scientific and mathematical > principles and techniques to the creation of software; in a word: > engineering. > > --- Larry Andreassen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Comparing small and large team projects I've been involved with... > > Small teams... "Do the work..." > > Large teams... "Do the process..." > > By process I mean a pre-defined set of steps, documents and > stages. > > And, > > often these stages do not fit naturally with the work. > > > > === > Gregory Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > "Without the requirement of mathematical aesthetics a great many > discoveries would not have been made." > > -- Albert Einstein > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by: > Power Architecture Resource Center: Free content, downloads, > discussions, > and more. http://solutions.newsforge.com/ibmarch.tmpl > _______________________________________________ > Hardhats-members mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members > === Gregory Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Without the requirement of mathematical aesthetics a great many discoveries would not have been made." -- Albert Einstein ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: Power Architecture Resource Center: Free content, downloads, discussions, and more. http://solutions.newsforge.com/ibmarch.tmpl _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
