OT: Crazy Programming

[Tim Roberts]

paul at boddie.net (Paul Boddie) wrote:

>"Andrew Dalke" <dalke at dalkescientific.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Since Perl people like the analogy to human languages, it's like me
>> saying I drink 'soda's while people in the Midwest drink 'pop'.
>
>This is one thing I strongly dislike about the "Perl attitude" to
>programming, along with the "coding is an art not a science" viewpoint
>and the "code is poetry" school of thought. Programming and coding are
>(or should mostly be) sciences or engineering practices which we
>should strive to get right every time - programmers and developers
>are, after all, writing instructions for machines which pretty much
>have to do the right thing all the time, not just when it's "cool" to
>do so (or not to do so).

This is exactly right, and it is an important point.  As long as programs
continue to be essentially "hand-crafted", we will never be able to build
reliable large systems.  Only when programming ceases to be art and moves
into the realm of engineering -- like building a bridge or a building --
will we get the reliability that we really need in order to create the
large systems that the twenty-first century demands.
--
- Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
  Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.