NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/comp/software/2908

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-21 | 5.4 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!uknet!newcastle.ac.uk!ugle!najcb
From: [e-mail] (A.J.C. Blyth)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: The origin of ``software engineering''
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 21 Jul 92 17:16:52 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Computing Laboratory, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK NE17RU
Lines: 95
Nntp-Posting-Host: ugle

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (Charles R. Martin) writes:
|>   Question: What do you define real engineering as.........................?
|>
|>Whatever it is that has the semantics Bertrand implicitly claimed
|>software engineering doesn't have.

This is a very wooly and unhelpful answer could you be more precise...?

|>   |>*All* forms of engineering share many of the problems that software
|>   |>engineering does: poorly-defined requirements, complexity, change
|>   |>control, cost-and-schedule, and so on.  *If* one finds examples of
|>   |>appropriate complexity -- which I think means looking for examples where
|>   |>the number of designers over the design lifecycle is comparable -- one
|>   |>finds all the problems we're used to in software.  (See for example a
|>   |>recent book _Skyscraper_ which I would cite better if I could find the
|>   |>thing in my bookshelves.)  Since we usually spend our time around
|>   |>electrical engineers, we get this subconscious image that all
|>   |>engineering can be put into boxes in a 19 inch rack.
|>
|>   I agree that there are many engineering principles that software
|>   engineering can make use of, and infact should make use of.
|>   However are you saying that the only techniques that we need to
|>   construct computer artifacts are engineering ones.
|>
|>Anyway, small grammar flame aside, I certainly don't claim that the only
|>techniques needed to construct "computer artifacts" -- by that, BTW, do
|>you mean software?  Sounds like it would include hardware -- are
|>engineering ones.  But is it your claim that all the techniques used by
|>mechanical or architectural engineers are engineering ones?

The answer to that question all depends on what you define an engineering
techniques to be. So what do you define an engineering technique to be..?

|>   At this point point I would like to quote form a really good book that
|>   I can honestly recommend. It's called "Work-Oriented Design of
|>   Computer Artifacts" and its by Pelle Ehn.
|>
|>   In this book in the Prologue has says :
|>   "Computers and coffee machines are perhaps the two most striking
|>   artifacts of a workplace today. To understand these artifacts we have
|>   to understand how people use them. For example the coffee machine is not
|>   just used to produce a stimulating drink; more importantly it offers an
|>   oppertunity for people to meet, for communication in the workplace.
|>   Similarly, computers are not just instrumental means of production;
|>   they also condition and mediate social relations at work."
|>
|>   Any engineering process that attempts to address how and why social
|>   relations are mediate is going to find it very hard indeed. And
|>   try to specify the semantic's of software engineering is thus going
|>   to involve in some way specifying the semantics of social relations.
|>
|>But that is precisely what an architect or architectural designer must
|>do; similarly for civil engineers (think about highway design).  What
|>magical property of software do you propose that makes this more true
|>for software?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term "architect" to mean the
designer of complex structure. Thus an architect designs a system, he/she
does not specify the system.

In the good old days when just a few people had, or, could afford a computer
they tended to be used as large number crunching machines. However today
most people have computers at work and at home. With the growth of the use
of computers they have become more accept in todays society. Today
computers are used not only mediate social interaction but also to take
part in social relationships.

|>   With computers becomeing more widespread in their use techniques
|>   that draw upon social conepts are becomeing required to aid the
|>   software engineering in his/her task of system construction.
|>
|>   This in conculsion to all this the question is can we specify the
|>   semantcis to social concepts and constructs. Info so then the
|>   software engineering of today can have a semantcis defined for it.
|>   It is my personnel belief that you can not specify the semantics
|>   for social relationships and hence you can not define the semantcis
|>   for software engineering today.
|>
|>Um, say what?  If I follow correctly, there are certainly studies that
|>others use to try to specify the "semantics of social concepts and
|>constructs" for example in the design of public and private spaces in a
|>building.  Again, this is so fuzzy I can't follow what you are proposing
|>is the magical difference.

The point that I am attempting to make is that your posting implied that
software engineering as a hard disapline. In this assertion I beleive
that you are wrong and I offer the social aspects of computer science
as evidence of my belief. You only have to look at the effectiveness
of techniques such as DEMOS and UTOPIA to see how effective techniques
that use social concepts can be.



Andrew.