Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!regenmeister!chrisp From: chrisp@regenmeister.uucp (Chris Prael) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Information Systems is an Engineering Discipline Message-ID: <34371@regenmeister.uucp> Date: 26 Sep 89 21:02:06 GMT References: <592@halley.UUCP> Sender: chrisp@regenmeister (Chris Prael) Distribution: comp.edu Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Mtn View, CA Lines: 24 From article <592@halley.UUCP>, by joannz@halley.UUCP (Joann Zimmerman): > One other very noticeable difference between other engineering fields and > computing is in the amount of failure analysis to be found in the field. A superb point. And one I have consistently overlooked. This is pure speculation, but it seems to me that there are two impediments to failure analysis in software. The first is my previous point of people functioning like technicians rather than like engineers, which means just hacking things until you have something that looks like it works (also known as prototyping). It is very hard to analize a design when there is none. The second impediment is the programmerly habit of patching things up as fast as they break. It would be interesting to analize the reported bugs from, say, a series of OS or translator releases. > How would we go about developing this into a real engineering discipline? Why not follow the leaders? Do what the real engineers do. Chris Prael