On Mon, June 1, 1998 at 13:17:48 (-0700) Michael Perelman writes: > >I would like to hear more about this. Programming is becoming more >and more industrialized, but business is not making a lot of progress >in harnessing this industrialization. Few big projects are finished >on time and many are abandoned. We have some experts on the list who >could comment on this. But programmers do not see themselves as >workers, from what I have seen. I think it works like this: Michael is right, business is having a hard time harnessing programmers. The nature of the work makes it difficult to strangle people too much; they have to be free to a certain extent to think for themselves. Software is also a very difficult thing for which to develop accurate metrics for productivity. Chaos seems to rule, controlled more or less, wherever I have worked. Another thing about software development: you get much higher quality when you allow extensive and relatively free worker communication. This, dreadfully, can lead to all things like confidence, solidarity, etc. Combine these and you get relatively high-cost labor that must be given a bit more leash than other workers, and that may not feel the need for union protection. Also, a great deal of programming is "black-art" sort of stuff. Accountants learn their stuff in school; lots of programmers learn their stuff "on the street", or bake up their own approaches, which often work as well or better than that taught in schools. This perhaps leads to a bit of the elitism encountered. Industry is particularly prone to every imaginable technical fad that promises "reuse", which really means component programming, which really means component programmers. Object-oriented programming was supposed to be a silver bullet, but it has always suffered from feverish claims of its benefits far outweighing what actually materializes. I'm curious to know about how "staffing structures" affects unionizing efforts, though. Bill
