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[Hans Georg Schaathun]

On Thu, 12 May 2011 23:20:20 +1000, Chris Angelico
  <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
:  Writing a program requires expertise both in programming and in the
:  purpose for which it's being written. Ultimately, a programmer is a
:  translator; without proper comprehension of the material he's
:  translating, he can't make a clear translation. But that's completely
:  different from hiring someone to do a job, and then looking at the job
:  afterwards;

True.  When you are able completely to specify the job and commission 
it, then it is possible to isolate the disciplines, and reduce the
programmer to translator.

The challenge is that that very often is not the case.  

The double challenge in computing is that software its development 
is still not as well understood as hardware or construction.
We still do not have sufficient tools, experience and frameworks
to project and precisely plan a software development projects.
They go over time, over budget, and under specifications far more
often and more seriously than projects in other disciplines.
Civil and electronic engineers spend much of their time learning to
project and cost solutions.  Computer engineers very rarely do; they
just hack it.  In other trades, there tend to be clear role divisions
with different roles and specialisations, complementing eachothers.
We have not yet quite managed to work out what a programmer, architect,
designer, engineer, et cetera are in software.  We have the idea that
we need them, but we have not formalised them to the point where we
know what to expect from each role, and we struggle communicating
between them.

Therefore, a programmer is not just a translator.  The language to
specify precisely what is required is not good enough, and therefor
the programmer also needs to be a system designer, to some extent.
What extent depends much on the situation.

>From my point of view, it is just harder to instruct a programmer
to write a code than it is to instruct a python interpreter.

:              if I order a concreting job, I'll look at whether it's
:  properly suited to the task, but I won't expect an explanation of
:  exactly what went into it, and I do not expect to understand the exact
:  chemistry of it. Only another expert in concrete would truly
:  comprehend it all.

Now you are thinking black and white, while reality is a gray blur.
You may not care about your concrete, but someone commissioning
concrete to build a skyscraper would surely want to check the
spec's to quite some level of detail.  The construction engineers
will surely need to know a lot more about the exact composition and 
science behind the recipe than the manager renting the top floor,
and still much less than the concrete engineer.

And the main difference here, is that the civil engineers have a much
better language to share information.  The best programmers have is
the programmming language, and we ought to make that as good as
possible.

-- 
:-- Hans Georg