[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
>