Y2-nuthin'?

[Zack Exley]

Programming will always be a craft until computers can do it
themselves--probably not all that far off.
Advances like structured programming (in the 80's), and then object oriented
programming (in the 90's), just made programmers wildly more efficient.
Rather than de-skill programming, object oriented programming took out many
of the mundane tasks that used to be a big part of programming.  With OO you
create and share reusable building blocks--so everything gets very elegant
and fun.  I was a programmer back in the early 80's and then again in the
late 90's.  And writing code is much more fun and satisfying nowadays.

But working in IT depts., you don't have the sense that along with this gain
in efficiency has come the usual work speed-up.  It feels like a massive
slow down actually.

This probably only applies to IT departments in non-IT companies.  It sounds
like they work very hard in all these internet start-ups, for example.

-Zack

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
[mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Michael Perelman
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2000 3:31 PM
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: Re: Y2-nuthin'?

There's a good book on Japanese Taylorization of programming, by Cusumano,
Japan's
Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management."Doug Henwood wrote:


> Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> >Zack's description sounds like late 19th C. industry where the "steel
makers"
> >did not know how to make steel.  They were dependent on the expertise of
the
> >puddlers.  Only the end product, steel, is easier to evaluate than the
product
> >of the programmers.
>
> Back in the 80s there was a lot of talk about Taylorizing programming
> - modular or structured programs, the DoD's promotion of Ada, etc.
> Whatever happened to all that?
>
> Doug

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901