Cameron Laird wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > Mark Carter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > . > [tale of *very* > typical experience > with non-software > engineers] > . > . >
Don't start me! Dammit, too late ...
I've noticed that they have an overwhelming obsession with GUIs, too. They design wizards for everything. Damn pretty they are, too. Albeit a bit flakey. They seem to conflate pretty interfaces with good interfaces and good software.
I used to joke that since our software wasn't particularly magical, it didn't need wizards. But I think I just ended up sounding bitter.
We once had a bit of software that we thought we'd like to turn into a generic application. The focus on improvements was, predictably enough, that we should design a GUI that could do anything a client would likely to want to do. It was my opinion, though, having seen the very "special-cases" nature required in the original software, that it was almost impossible to predict exactly how a customer might want the product tailored. I suggested that what they really needed was a library (Python would have been good for this, Lisp might have been even better) that could be extended as required. GUIs second, functionality first. But hey, what would I know. Fortunately, the whole thing's been put on the back burner.
And trying to get through to them why source control makes sense, that when more than one person works on a project, some form of coordination is required, that copying and pasting code is evil, and that Excel probably isn't the hammer for every nail.
Honestly, I thought (real) engineers were supposed to be clever. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
