The Industry choice

[Mark Carter]

Cameron Laird wrote:
 > In article <41d7def6$0$74273$ed2619ec at ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net>,
 > Mark Carter  <mcturra2000 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
 > 			.
 > 		[tale of *very*
 > 		typical experience
 > 		with non-software
 > 		engineers]
 > 			.
 > 			.
 >


Don't start me! Dammit, too late ...

I've noticed that they have an overwhelming obsession with GUIs, too. 
They design wizards for everything. Damn pretty they are, too. Albeit a 
bit flakey. They seem to conflate pretty interfaces with good interfaces 
and good software.

I used to joke that since our software wasn't particularly magical, it 
didn't need wizards. But I think I just ended up sounding bitter.

We once had a bit of software that we thought we'd like to turn into a 
generic application. The focus on improvements was, predictably enough, 
that we should design a GUI that could do anything a client would likely 
to want to do. It was my opinion, though, having seen the very 
"special-cases" nature required in the original software, that it was 
almost impossible to predict exactly how a customer might want the 
product tailored. I suggested that what they really needed was a library 
(Python would have been good for this, Lisp might have been even better) 
that could be extended as required. GUIs second, functionality first. 
But hey, what would I know. Fortunately, the whole thing's been put on 
the back burner.

And trying to get through to them why source control makes sense, that 
when more than one person works on a project, some form of coordination 
is required, that copying and pasting code is evil, and that Excel 
probably isn't the hammer for every nail.

Honestly, I thought (real) engineers were supposed to be clever.