More than a decade ago, a Stanford President (sorry, don't remember his name), discussed the need to conduct "interdisciplinary" research. While receiving open acclaim, a department head, behind closed doors, made note that his department needed more money than another department. Here, interdisciplinary interests were not a major consideration. Similar relations can easily be recognized in how some professions relate to programmers, be they scientists, administration, engineers, etc..
I got my first job as a programmer back in the late 60's, even though I was a college drop-out, over two math graduates. The boss said he did not want values of variable filled, he wanted to try to synthesize formulas from the ether. It was 10 years before I really came to appreciate his desires.
Having worked in academia for 15 years, I judge a staff programmer to be a non-entity compared with faculty.
Having worked with an ME based firm designing control sysytems with micro processors, programmers (and EE's) were similar non-entities. I then asked ME's who worked for EE firms, getting similar answers.
Having interviewed with a CE firm, whose main products were software(!), programmers were appendages, even though it could be viewed as a software firm.
I, and I would presume "hackers" in general, program as they do because it is very hard to find a scientific environment where they are as much a part of the interdisciplinary effort as the one who pays the bills (About the only well known exception I've heard of are financial institutions using mathematicians and physicists to study financial patterns. They have no idea what or how they do their reserarch, but they leave them alone).
Programmers who might be interested in scientific research and even have exceptional credentials - experience, personal, motivational - have a hard time finding a suitable project.
The unfortunate thing is that a scientific programmer, unlike an author who can write entirely indepentdently, needs interdisciplinary involvement. Like the Stanford U President back in 80's noted, while some rant about the "team" organization of scientific research, it is rarely practiced (my own paraphrase).
ernest_g
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More than a decade ago, a Stanford President (sorry, don't remember his name), discussed the need to conduct "interdisciplinary" research. While receiving open acclaim, a department head, behind closed doors, made note that his department needed more money than another department. Here, interdisciplinary interests were not a major consideration. Similar relations can easily be recognized in how some professions relate to programmers, be they scientists, administration, engineers, etc.. I got my first job as a programmer back in the late 60's, even though I was a college drop-out, over two math graduates. The boss said he did not want values of variable filled, he wanted to try to synthesize formulas from the ether. It was 10 years before I really came to appreciate his desires. Having worked in academia for 15 years, I judge a staff programmer to be a non-entity compared with faculty. Having worked with an ME based firm designing control sysytems with micro processors, programmers (and EE's) were similar non-entities. I then asked ME's who worked for EE firms, getting similar answers. Having interviewed with a CE firm, whose main products were software(!), programmers were appendages, even though it could be viewed as a software firm. I, and I would presume "hackers" in general, program as they do because it is very hard to find a scientific environment where they are as much a part of the interdisciplinary effort as the one who pays the bills (About the only well known exception I've heard of are financial institutions using mathematicians and physicists to study financial patterns. They have no idea what or how they do their reserarch, but they leave them alone). Programmers who might be interested in scientific research and even have exceptional credentials - experience, personal, motivational - have a hard time finding a suitable project. The unfortunate thing is that a scientific programmer, unlike an author who can write entirely indepentdently, needs interdisciplinary involvement. Like the Stanford U President back in 80's noted, while some rant about the "team" organization of scientific research, it is rarely practiced (my own paraphrase). ernest_g