Motivation of software professionals
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From: Volker Borchert on 10 Feb 2010 16:23 Pete Becker wrote: > Seebs wrote: > > The job of the engineer is to know enough to build something as reliably > > as possible with the available tools, > > And within the available budget. > > and tell you how reliable that is. > > Anyone can build a bridge that stands up. It takes an engineer to build > on that barely stands up. What about Galloping Gertie? -- "I'm a doctor, not a mechanic." Dr Leonard McCoy <mccoy(a)ncc1701.starfleet.fed> "I'm a mechanic, not a doctor." Volker Borchert <v_borchert(a)despammed.com>
From: James Kanze on 10 Feb 2010 17:15 On Feb 9, 11:02 pm, John Koy <John....(a)example.com> wrote: > Arved Sandstrom wrote: > [...] > > Engineering "certification" processes are considerably > > better and more comprehensive than anything that most > > software developers are ever exposed to. Starting with > > education - there's no requirement at all that software > > developers have a relevant degree or associate degree, or > > indeed any real SD training at all. Try that with > > prospective professional engineeers. > > It's not just entry-level certification that software > > developers lack. It's code of conduct, professional > > education, duty to the client, professional discipline and > > so forth. These are all standards. In order for software > > "engineering" to really be engineering it has to adopt > > similar standards. > As long as we disclaim all liability and give no warranties > for the solutions/products we build, SD cannot be an > engineering field and the term "software engineer" remains as > an oxymoron. But that's really only the case for shrink-wrapped software (and presumably, it doesn't exclude your legal guarantees). Most of the projects I've worked on did have guarantees, and contractual penalties for downtime. -- James Kanze
From: James Kanze on 10 Feb 2010 17:18 On Feb 10, 10:03 am, Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mcle...(a)btinternet.com> wrote: > On Feb 10, 1:02 am, John Koy <John....(a)example.com> wrote:> > Arved Sandstrom wrote: > > As long as we disclaim all liability and give no warranties > > for the solutions/products we build, SD cannot be an > > engineering field and the term "software engineer" remains > > as an oxymoron. > Basically no-one knows how to built bug-free software, so the > lability exclusions are necessary. Basically no one knows how to build 100% bug-free anything. Witness Toyota. Globally, in fact, you can probably do better with software than with most other things. And I've never worked on a project where there have been liability exclusions (which probably aren't legal anyway). > They would be commercial suicide in any other field. That > doesn't mean there is no such thing as software engineering, > only that it is new and undeveloped. Boilers used to regularly > explode at the beginning of the industrial revolution, now > such accidents are almost unheard of. Well written software fails a lot less frequently than automobile brakes. -- James Kanze
From: James Kanze on 10 Feb 2010 17:24 On Feb 10, 10:42 am, Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mcle...(a)btinternet.com> wrote: > On Feb 10, 12:29 pm, Arved Sandstrom <dces...(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > > In other words, we have adequate processes available but > > tend not to adopt them. And _then_ because the products are > > seriously flawed we disclaim liability because the products > > are in poor shape. > > We need to get pushed from the outside, by purchasers of our > > software. Unfortunately that hasn't happened. > Software management is not so stupid. If adequate procedures > were available that could ensure bug-free software, at > reasonable cost and time, they they would have been adopted. Guaranteed error-free doesn't exist in any domain. It's not too difficult to achieve error rates of less than one error per 100 KLoc, however, and at least one shop does less than one error per million lines of code. Curiously enough, achieving one error per 100 KLoc typical reduces your development costs. But for whatever reasons, in many companies, this goes unnoticed---in the end, if you're selling shrink wrapped software, development costs are more or less negligible, compared to marketing costs, so it doesn't matter if you spend a bit more. > Except in a few areas customers would soon shy away from 'no > warrantry including the implied warrantry of suitability for > any particular purpose' products. Legally, of course, you have certain rights, regardless of what the "warrenty" says. It's just that as far as I know, no one has attempted to enforce them for software. > The fact is that many many formal methods are in existence. > Some of them might work, to some extent, and in some > circumstances. But none have really proved themselves when it > comes to the acid test of developing real software for > non-trivial projects. Less that one error per million lines of code is achievable. And I've worked on projects where we had less than one error per 100 KLoc (going into integration). -- James Kanze
From: James Kanze on 10 Feb 2010 17:31
On Feb 10, 5:43 pm, Lew <no...(a)lewscanon.com> wrote: > Arved Sandstrom wrote: > >> In other words, we have adequate processes available but tend not to > >> adopt them. And _then_ because the products are seriously flawed we > >> disclaim liability because the products are in poor shape. > >> We need to get pushed from the outside, by purchasers of > >> our software. Unfortunately that hasn't happened. > Malcolm McLean wrote: > > Software management is not so stupid. If adequate procedures > > were available that could ensure bug-free software, at > > reasonable cost and time, they they would have been adopted. > > Except in a few areas > Bullshit. > Management doesn't adopt effective practices for a variety of > reasons, but the fact is that far too many projects are > managed in fashions contrary to best practices. It's a > combination of application of an inappropriate management > paradigm (factory work vs. talent work), ignorance or > disbelief of the fundamentals, mistrust of the commitment and > understanding of the developers, and a desire to keep the > process inefficient in order to collect more money. I suspect that it's often a case of management not being able to be everywhere, and the fact that marketing issues are far more important than saving a bit of money (while simultaneously improving quality) in development. > The observable fact is that software projects are managed as > though management were stupid. That's why half to two-thirds > (depending on whose figures you go by) of all major software > projects never go into production, and so many that do have > major, preventable bugs. I've often wondered where such statistics come from. Over the last twenty years, only one project I've worked on failed to go into production, and none of the others had major, preventable bugs---in at least one, the most serious bug that was found was a spelling error in a log message, and in one other case, no errors were found after delivery (but that was a very small project). > > customers would soon shy away from 'no warrantry including > > the implied warrantry of suitability for any particular > > purpose' products. > Adequate procedures are available, or haven't you been > studying the subject? > > The fact is that many many formal methods are in existence. > > Some of them might work, to some extent, and in some > > circumstances. But none have really proved themselves when > > it comes to the acid test of developing real software for > > non-trivial projects. > Again, not true. Iterative development alone greatly > increases productivity and quality. Add in other elements of > agile programming, or whatever the rubric is for effective > practices these days, and you asymptotically approach > perfection. From what I've seen, "agile" programming hasn't really changed much. In fact, it's often been just a relabeling of the same old procedures. (That's a common problem with "in" labels---before agile programming, a lot of projects became "OO" overnight. With no change in procedures.) > The field of software project management is well studied and > well documented. Effective techniques are known and > published. And have been for decades. They simply are not > followed. Except where they are. I was a contractor for the last 25 or 30 years, and most of the places I worked did you more or less effective techniques. -- James Kanze |