[LINK] Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?

steve jenkin sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au
Sun Jan 13 09:08:41 AEDT 2008


Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote on 11/1/08 10:37 AM:

>
> I work in a world of large scale, complex, enterprise systems used by
> organisations such as government departments, airlines, banks,
> insurance companies etc.
>
> Such environments are often divided up, somewhat arbitrarily, into a
> number of "disciplines". These include:
>
> Business System Analysis and Design
> Application Development
> Application Maintenance and Support
> Networks
> Operations
> Security
> Back-up
> Disaster Recovery
> Management

This discussion is a vignette of what's missing in I.T.
The professional basics are missing and they aren't being addressed.

After 50-60 years of commercial computing I.T. lacks:
 - a taxonomy of disciplines, roles and job.
 - any way to rate the on-going competence of practitioners
 - any way to rate the 'degree of difficulty' of tasks
 - ways to describe complexity, scale, entropy of systems
 - ways to assess & track practitioner output & work quality
 - global reporting of projects statistics

Most importantly, I.T. fails this part of a definition of a Profession:
    Known errors can't be repeated without consequence.

We, as a profession, can't answer the most important and basic questions
for our customers:
 - can this person *do* this piece of work
 - what is a reasonable amount of time to finish the task
 - what are the quality measures for the task and are the achievable

Illustrations:
 - How good are Danny, Roger, Tom, Bernard & Alastair at their jobs?
 - Just *what* are their roles and areas of expertise?
 - How do their professional competencies differ?
 - How would you choose between them for a role?

In Aviation, these questions are all answered.
Pilots choose who can be pilots.
Pilots are uniformly tested and rated, frequently.
There are professional consequences for poor performance.

Choosing who gets to fly in what role & be responsible for lives is
taken very seriously.
And errors, incidents & failures are reported & carefully examined -
even when not life threatening.

People who hire in Aviation have confidence the system will deliver them
competent, safe professionals.
Recent graduates don't get to drive $200M aircraft.
Practice, training and testing are a given and constant.

> <snip>
>
> However, In my defence I would point to the many large IT projects
> that end up as failures and suggest that there is more than a grain of
> truth in all this.
>
Even what you'd think was trivial - reporting minimal outcome data on
hundreds of $-billions spent on IT projects - is not only completely
missing, its necessity & importance seems to escape the regulators,
educators and professional bodies.

While entertaining, this thread is most interesting from what is missing
in the discussion.
There is no basis for objective discussion, only "he said, she said"
back and forth.
There aren't any reliable history or records [Gates *did* learn BASIC as
a first language at the school terminal]
There isn't even an good understanding of the broadest of terms:
Software Engineering and Computer Science.

As for Java/ADA vs anything:
    Show us the numbers/proof if you dispute the claims in the article.
Don't make more assertions.

-- 
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin




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