[plt-scheme] Perplexed Programmers

This is really depressing. I think IT science has done and is doing a great job 
and much of it has become available as adquirable technical skills. I think 
management science, if it exists at all, is far behind. The IT science job has 
been done so well and has produced so many skilled techniciens that management 
is gambling that whatever problem they put forward, it will be solved by 
techniciens. They will in the end, I think, but they are not going to solve 
management problems unless we are making a science of management. Not very 
probable I think, for established management is not waiting for competition and 
the risk to hear that it actually fails as an adequate management. And since 
management is distributing the budgets ...
Jos koot

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Cleis" <rcleis at mac.com>
To: "Bill Wood" <william.wood3 at comcast.net>
Cc: "Jos Koot" <jos.koot at telefonica.net>; "PLT Scheme" 
<plt-scheme at list.cs.brown.edu>
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2007 4:26 PM
Subject: Re: [plt-scheme] Perplexed Programmers


> Nothing changes if most have experienced what I have (while working  in the 
> same organization my entire career):
>
> 1) We know little of the chain you describe; "those who don't know  history 
> are doomed to repeat it" (or something like that)
>
> 2) Management knows little of this chain. "...doomed..."
>
> 3) Very few in 1 end up in 2. "...doomed..." even if only a few  learned of 
> the chain and cared to heed its warnings.
>
> 4) Most in 2 emerge from activities where they learned 'about' 1, but  never 
> realistically or thoroughly experienced it. "...doomed..."
>
> If the above is normal, it seems reasonable that 39 years later the  same 
> mistakes are made... but with much cooler tools that attract  many more people 
> that don't know history and are doomed to repeat it.
>
> By throwing lots of money at projects, though, mediocre solutions  have 
> managed to cut through the jungle.  Maybe these recent publicly  obvious 
> problems show that we have reached some sort of limit, and  programming will 
> be treated more as an art than a technical skill  that is taught with i years 
> of school and j years of OJT.  It is a  beautiful Sunday morning; I am going 
> outside to fly my pig.
>
> rac
>
>
> On Aug 26, 2007, at 3:04 AM, Bill Wood wrote:
>
>> You know what's really depressing about this?  Look at the findings of
>> the 1968 (yes, 1968!) NATO report that introduced the phrase "Software
>> Crisis" and helped kick off the structured programming revolution.
>>
>> Thirty-nine years later, after structured programming, software  physics,
>> structured analysis and design, data-flow diagrams, object-oriented
>> programming, software engineering, SEI, COCO, UML, etc. etc. ad nausam
>> -- nothing has changed!
>>
>>  -- Bill Wood
>>
>
>