# from David Golden
# on Tuesday 03 March 2009 12:02:
>> I would expect application of the Science to be found in the
>> Software Engineering program, but we've got a ways to go yet before
>> it becomes a professional discipline -- complete with licensing and
>> responsibility.
>
>You might be interested in this article by Peter Deming, "Is Software
>Engineering Engineering?
>
>http://cs.gmu.edu/cne/pjd/PUBS/CACMcols/cacmMar09.pdf
Yes. Interestingly, he mentions the 1968 NATO conference (where the
term "Software Engineering" first appeared. From what I've read in the
proceedings of that conference, one key debate was about software
pricing (and IIRC, a substantial portion of that was about whether or
not vendors should be "allowed" to charge for software.) Yet, Deming
doesn't have much to say about the relative lack of openness in
software and computer science compared to other disciplines. I'll also
note that most of the world's population does not have any difficulties
relating to race conditions in the flight controller of their fighter
jet (and anyway, the factor of safety for most warcraft is roughly 0.9
to compensate for conservative assumptions hidden in the material
specs.)
But steel and concrete are priced per-pound (or a proxy of weight such
as volume aka truckload.) And even installation cost is roughly linear
per pound assuming typical methods. The engineer gets a percentage of
this. Perhaps we should charge by the pound for CPAN modules? Not
lines of code, but some kind of metric which appropriately conveys heft
(toughness/strength/finish are, of course, premium.)
One should also note that the importance factor for most software is
about 0.1. The very slow (yet massively parallel) death of "wasted
time" apparently does not count as "lives are at stake."
I think we figured out long ago that the design algorithm (given the
classic "pick-two" variables $good, $cheap, and $fast) is basically:
if($good) {
goto &engineering;
}
else {
print q(print "hello world\n";);
}
And nobody ever picks $good, yet they wonder why they get what they get.
--Eric
--
Issues of control, repair, improvement, cost, or just plain
understandability all come down strongly in favor of open source
solutions to complex problems of any sort.
--Robert G. Brown
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