On 01/21/2012 09:05 PM, Richard Pieri wrote:
Case in point, this article that just came down through Slashdot:
http://www.digitalbond.com/2012/01/19/project-basecamp-at-s4/
Imagine a highway or building or train or airliner being designed and
constructed to the same standards that these SCADA systems were made. Take it
another step: imagine medical equipment designed the same way that these SCADA
systems were. Now be afraid because medical equipment really is designed the
same.
It gets worse: that medical equipment can't be updated. They can't be updated
because changing anything will push them off spec, will violate whatever EAL
the devices have, and will make them legally unusable for medical practice.
Many of these are running old operating systems -- like Windows 98 old --
without any patches at all. And yet, we trust quite literally our lives to
these things.
These are serious problems, yes, but they are not a result of a
licensing issue. They are about an immature profession. Think of it this
way, if software engineering were formalized, we'd have to settle some
problems.
What is the standard language in which to write programs?
What is the standard operating system that is run on computers?
If we can't have a standard operating system, what is the standard API
to which we code?
Who owns these things? Would you pay Microsoft for the privilege to
practice in your field?
In some ways we are to blame. We software engineers have not taken our
profession seriously. We have not created and/or joined the professional
organizations, like doctors, lawyers, electricians, and pipe-fitters, to
define and protect our profession.
What has happened, sadly, is that we have a profession in which there
are no standards and any newbe can come along create a new programming
language because he or she did not like the existing language. If we are
lucky, it looks something like previous languages, but this is not
always the case. We don't steadily improve the tools of our craft, we
destroy them and rebuild them new each and every time.
How many programming languages and environments are needed? How many
operating systems? If you look at electricians, they have a whole set of
regulations about wire, connectors, methodologies, etc. Do we? Hell, if
we compared ourselves to plumbers, we would re-invent the pipe for each
job.
--Rich P.
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