jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) (11/17/88)
This thread is working its way out of relevance in this newsgroup. Whoever, I feel the need to interject a few closing remarks, etc. Professional discipline and ethics are not something which can be taught in a single course. Indeed, even programming skills themselves are difficult to teach in a classroom environment. There simply are too few hours in a semester to learn that craft. For a 132 hour undergraduate degree, which is just about what yours truly has, the student will attend approximately 1848 hours [ 132 hours per week times 14 weeks per semester ]. This is less than one years work in the so-call ``Real World''. One if you consider the number of non-degree related course, the actual amount of degree-related experience drops even lower. In `The Mythical Man Month' the author discusses various problems which are encountered when non-experienced programming staffs attempt to write large software systems. Several revisions later, the author points out, the entire kitchen sink has been added and the product is impossible to use or maintain. There are those of us who feel that BSD Unix has arrived at the ``kitchen sink'' state of its existence, and I for one also feel USG Unix is at the same stage. The system, by its very complexity, is becoming useless. The maintenance of such a system becomes more and more difficult until we arrive at the point where bugs aren't being fixed as fast as they are being found or created. And this is where we return to a question of discipline and ethics. It is only after years of experience that you realize the futility of adding new features on top of old systems, without first repairing the underlying system itself. -- John F. Haugh II +----Make believe quote of the week---- VoiceNet: (214) 250-3311 Data: -6272 | Nancy Reagan on Artifical Trish: InterNet: jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US | "Just say `No, Honey'" UucpNet : <backbone>!killer!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------