----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregory Woodhouse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2005 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] Goedelian malaise
I would venture a guess that the majority of the work in building a
bridge is done by the construction workers who do not know or understand
the principles of physics fully.
That's a tricky one. I receive assignments (such as reformatting reports
or adding new columns) that are essentially mechanical (I almost said
"mindless"!) but I've worked on a number of projects requiring use of
complex data structures, entirely novel algorithms, and tricky
performance analysis, too. So it seems to be a mixed bag: sometimes we
are called on to be engineers, an sometimes we are called on to
construction workers. Unfortunately or fortunately, the trend today does
seem to favor transforming software development into "construction"
rather than an engineering discipline, and it is becoming increasingly
difficult to distinguish between architecture and management.
Exactly what I was thinking when I wrote this. It is one way in which I
think our profession is more primative than modern civil engineering.
It may not even be necessary for the construction foreman who reads the
blue prints to fully understand the physics. It is the civil engineers
who must understand the physics. Or do they?
Good question. My father was a construction worker, and he certainly knew
a lot more about physics than he probably realized. He may not have been
able to formulate it all mathematically, and he wasn't always right,
either. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the knowledge of a
journeyman construction worker.
I agree. It would also be a mistake to overestimate the knowlege of physics
of all of the construction workers on a project.
People have been building bridges and cathedrals that do not fall down
since well before Newton articulated the laws which you say are so
important.
Yeah...and they built a few that did fall down, too!
That is true. But many have stood longer than I expect any of our 20th
Century software to stand up. Modern bridges fall down too sometimes.
Are we programmers the engineers or just the construction workers? The
electronic computer is not as old as I am. Maybe we are asking a lot of
such a young technology. Maybe we could make a better analogy with
medieval cathedral builders whose work has withstood the test of time.
At that time the distinction between the expert builder and the laborors
was not as great as that between the civil engineer who designs a bridge
and the construction workers. Who are we and what do we really need to
know that will help make software better?
Well, the computer is a bit older than I am, but not my much (I was born
in 1962). The cathedral analogy is a good one. It took time to develop
the flying buttress. Much of the technology that went into developing
cathedrals developed through a long process of trial and error and the
accumulation of folk knowledge. But would you really suggest that an
improved understanding of physics hasn't enabled us to build better and
safer structures? Would it be wise today for a construction firm to turn
its back on the discipline of engineering and when erecting, say, large
office complexes in earthquake (or hurricane) country?
I did not mean to imply that knowlege of Newtonian physics has not helped
modern civil and architectual engineering. I am convinced it has. I do not
know of any laws of physics that have helped to improve software (unless you
include software that is doing physics). I would, however, like to inject a
note of skepticism about the laws of computer science to the extent they may
be more like Aristotelian physics than Newtonian physics.
Jim Gray
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