Mark, [moved from the end to hear so the rest makes sense] >If we as CS educators declare that we're only interested in software developers, then >I fear
I can see a future where CS educators are more likely to say that they are not interested in software developers. To date software developers have gotten off very lightly on the litigation front. What happens when individual software developers start getting sued and in turn sue the University that taught them the techniques they claim to be using? It is only a matter of time before organisations start protecting their rear ends from open ended law suits. Has anybody read the wording in Sun's Java license? http://java.com/en/download/license.jsp "...Licensee acknowledges that Licensed Software is not designed or intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility..." Governments are slowly starting to realise the extent to which software has the potential to disable their countries Humanities students might soon be the only people your University will insure you to teach programming to. >>Then there are the quality of life issues. Forget terrorists, think of the >>mayhem that undertrained programmers can cause. I think we need to >>keep people away from programming computers. > >If the goal is to have more quality programming, then having fewer people program >isn't a workable strategy. It would be if we had some way of detecting who was going >to be a success software developer and who wouldn't, but such aptitude tests haven't >worked yet. So, the best way that we can end up with more quality programmers is to >get more people overall programming, and skim off the best to become software >developers. That is an expensive approach. Anyway that is not how things work for Doctors, Dentists, etc. >The reality is, whether we share that wish or not, that's what's happening. >Ethnographic studies, like Bonnie Nardi's very nice "A Small Matter of Programming," >show that there Legal protection usually exists to prevent one person hurting another (e.g., restaurants serving unsafe food), but laws to prevent individuals shooting themselves in the foot (e.g., cooking their own unsafe food) are rarer. > are end-user programmers in industry, and they tend to stratify. For example, in > Excel-using companies, there are people who build DLLs, those that build macros, > those that build spreadsheets, and those that just use others' spreadsheets. There are already rumblings of moves to require companies to have some form of certification of accounting spreadsheets. I know there have been papers presented at PPIG conferences on errors in spreadsheets and will leave it to others to tell the horror stories. derek -- Derek M Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667 Knowledge Software Ltd mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Applications Standards Conformance Testing http://www.knosof.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
