[PLUG] Slightly OT: PCC software engineering program

[Daggett, Steve]

> 
> Who or what industry uses "coders" who can't design?  or maybe I don't
> know what a coder is.  In my 25 years of programming I don't 
> think I've
> ever done any work that did not require some design.  Though I've been
> in the embedded systems/systems programming area.

  I just did a project with those guys!  The whole organization seemed to be
pathologically opposed to sitting down and planning out the code *before*
they started writing.  Their "design methodology" was "the programmer sits
down and start writing C".  

  Now, I have seen that methodology work in the past.  I've even used it
myself a time or two. ;-)  But it takes a very skilled or very dedicated
programmer to pull it off.  The cats I was working with possessed neither
trait.

  We went through dozens of false steps and software failures before the
project finally tanked.  

Steve D...