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[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 10:43 PM, Hans Georg Schaathun <hg at schaathun.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 12 May 2011 22:16:10 +1000, Chris Angelico
>  <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
> :  Anyone can join. Not everyone wants to join. Me, I'm happy here as a
> :  priest of the software industry, and I have no desire to become a
> :  priest of, say, automotive engineering or concrete pouring. Would an
> :  expert concreter be expected to explain to me exactly how to make
> :  different sorts of concrete, or would he be expected simply to fulfill
> :  his contract and provide me with my structure?
>
> Of course he would.  When a piece of software to calculate the
> properties or recipes for different kinds of concrete is needed.

Writing a program requires expertise both in programming and in the
purpose for which it's being written. Ultimately, a programmer is a
translator; without proper comprehension of the material he's
translating, he can't make a clear translation. But that's completely
different from hiring someone to do a job, and then looking at the job
afterwards; if I order a concreting job, I'll look at whether it's
properly suited to the task, but I won't expect an explanation of
exactly what went into it, and I do not expect to understand the exact
chemistry of it. Only another expert in concrete would truly
comprehend it all.

Chris Angelico