Segnalazione: intervista a David Parnas

Altra segnalazione, sempre sullo sviluppo software.  Una vecchia intervista (1999) a  David Parnas. Da leggere. Un paio di passaggi illuminanti e attualissimi.


Q: What is the most often-overlooked risk in software engineering?
R: Incompetent programmers. There are estimates that the number of programmers needed in the U.S. exceeds 200,000. This is entirely misleading. It is not a quantity problem; we have a quality problem. One bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year. Hiring more bad programmers will just increase our perceived need for them. If we had more good programmers, and could easily identify them, we would need fewer, not more.


Q: What is the most-repeated mistake in software engineering?
R: People tend to underestimate the difficulty of the task. Overconfidence explains most of the poor software that I see. Doing it right is hard work. Shortcuts lead you in the wrong direction and they often lead to disaster.


No comment.

Segnalazione articolo di Tom DeMarco su IEEE Software

Per chi sviluppa software e per chi ha almeno un'idea di massima di cosa sia l'ingegneria del software, questo articolo (pdf)  di Tom DeMarco su IEEE Software è assolutamente da leggere.

Prima citazione:

"I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that software engineering is an idea whose time has come and gone."

Conclusione:

"Software development is and always will be somewhat experimental.  The actual software construction isn’t necessarily experimental, but its conception is. And this is where our focus ought to be. It’s where our focus always ought to have been."

Si è anche sviluppata una bella discussione su CodingHorror. Alcuni commenti sono molto interessanti. Ovviamente non tutti sono d'accordo con DeMarco.  :)

OGGI SCIOPERO

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