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- Newsgroups: comp.object
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!darwin.sura.net!news.duc.auburn.edu!eng.auburn.edu!henley
- From: henley@eng.auburn.edu (James Paul Henley)
- Subject: Re: Is Borland the leader in technology?
- Message-ID: <henley.921216101942@einstein.che.eng.auburn.edu>
- Keywords: engineering
- Sender: usenet@news.duc.auburn.edu (News Account)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: einstein.che.eng.auburn.edu
- Organization: Auburn University Engineering
- References: <henley.921214084319@wilbur.eng.auburn.edu> <La8sVB1w164w@arasta.uucp>
- Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 16:19:42 GMT
- Lines: 53
-
- In article <La8sVB1w164w@arasta.uucp> philbo@arasta.uucp (Phillip Lindsay) writes:
- >I don't think my sentence implied that "we didn't need high level tools?" I
- >was merely expressing the point that high level tools don't address all
- >issues. For instance, a friend of mine (with a Computer Science background)
- >was working with several PHDs on an SDI project. The scientist's speciality
- >was material science. They used "high level tools" on Sun Workstations
- >to design silicon and needed my friend's help to build tools which
- >understood the silicon and could test it with several tools and models in
- >a reasonable time frame (with the help of a Sun hosted number cruncher).
- >The project could not have been completed without his expertise. The funny
- >thing is that he ended up designing silicon and becoming a department expert
- >before budget cuts chopped the department.
- >
- >--
- >Phillip Lindsay "Government for the Politicians for Japan."
- >INTERNET: 75230.300@compuserve.com ** UUCP: uunet!zardox!dhw68k!arasta!philbo
- >Phone: 714-385-2311 ** USMAIL: 2955 Champion Way, #175, Tustin, Ca. 92680
-
-
- I am looking at this from both the top and the bottom. In order for the
- tools to be effective, someone has to train Chemical Engineers in the proper
- use of the tools. That is *my* job. We have to cram a lot into those
- two programming courses. We are able to cram a lot more in with Turbo Pascal
- than we could have ever dreamed of using FORTRAN. I'm looking at what the
- next step might be. We will always teach a procedural high level language,
- because one of the goals of the programming course is to teach students to
- think logically about a problem solution. In fact, the guidelines from
- CACHE state that a computer program is a formal statement of the solution
- of a problem. But in the upper level courses like Process Control, it is
- impossible to teach enough in a traditional procedural language in time for
- them to write the necessary programs. We have gone back and forth between
- several different simulation packages, and we are starting to use ASPEN on
- Sun stations. We have real fancy graphical interfaces, but IMHO, what is
- beneath the interface is inefficient and inadequate. Yet I'm told that it
- is "State of the Art."
-
- It will take a critical mass of graduating engineers, trained in better
- computer methods to budge the status quo in industry. I want a methodology
- that can be taught at the undergraduate level, and will be powerful enough
- to allow companies to do what they cannot do right now. Probably the
- most important thing is that it must allow an engineer to describe a problem
- in terms that he understands, and in a language that is as straightforward
- as possible.
-
- Why OOP? We already use object oriented methods, we just don't call it that.
- We call it Unit Operations. But going from the description of the process
- to a program for implementing a model of the process is a quantum leap.
-
-
- Dr. James P. Henley Jr.
- Department of Chemical Engineering
- Auburn University
-
-