[PLUG] Slightly OT: PCC software engineering program

[Daggett, Steve]

Brian Beattie:
> On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 10:34, Daggett, Steve wrote:
> > > 
> > > 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
> 
> which guys?

  They aren't local, or even West coast.  You should never meet.  Other than
that, It wouldn't be wise to comment in a public forum.  

> > 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". 
> 
> I've never seen this, or if I did I must have ignored it and 
> gone about
> my the bigger the job, the more detailed the design, but lets not go
> overboard and design a 747 when we want a toy airplane :)

  I didn't want to design a 747.  I wanted *some* rational design that we
could all agree would be a working concept.  Especially after the 3rd or 4th
failed attempt.  

> >   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.
> 
> Thats true, the better the staff, the less detail you need and on some
> smaller stuff all you need are the goals.  
> > 
> >   We went through dozens of false steps and software 
> failures before the
> > project finally tanked.  
> 
> I've seen over-design and redesign and redesign will kill a 
> project too.

  I rarely break out a the old Cobol flow chart templates for little shell
and perl scripts.  Anything bigger that that, I like to have some kind of
thought out design.  I never do rigorous design any more, but then of
course, I'm not a programmer any more either.  

> If it were easy anybody could do it.
> 
> When I have interviewed people I'm more concerned with their
> intelligence than their experience had one guy with an advanced degree
> in CS, completely useless.

  Some of the best programmers I've worked with didn't have programming
degrees.  One guy had degree in Theatrical Arts.  

Steve D...