We Really Don't Know Jack About Maintenance

davecb writes "The ACM has been kind enough to print Paul Stachour's and my 'jack' article about Software Maintenance. Paul first pointed out back in 1984 that we and our managers were being foolish — when we were still running Unix V7 — and if anything it's been getting worse. Turns out maintenance has been a 'solved problem in computer science' since at least then, and we're just beginning to rediscover it."

Comments

Different Kinds of Companies

[digsbo]

Decades ago, companies which developed technology were...technology companies. With real engineers, and highly technically skilled management. Today, companies with business-oriented management and zero technology background own and develop systems. They often do it poorly, with insufficiently empowered engineering teams, and insufficiently skilled engineers.

So today we've got a lot of Java and .Net shops filled with junior-level programmers and no disciplined, experienced systems engineers. Is it a surprise that when MS brought programming to the masses that the masses failed to learn engineering?

Re:Different Kinds of Companies

[pwinkeler]

When I worked at Analogic Corporation [www.analogic.com] in the mid-eighties, the then owner/president/ceo Bernie Gordon refused to grant anyone working in software the title "Engineer". We were all "just" programmers. Until we could show him specs and tolerances and statistical failure rates of our designs we were nothing but a bunch of untrustworthy programmers. And you know what? He was right: we still are.