Re^4: Analogies & metaphor (was Mathematics eq CompSci)

Yeah, i can understand that. I hope the analogy worked for you more or less.

More or less - emphasis on the "less" :-)

I understood what you were getting at after a couple of readings but statements like:

The Assembly workers generally require minimal skills, the engineers should have already solved most of the issues involved in the manufacturing process

really annoy me. You go up to a assembly worker and tell them their job requires minimal skills and that the "engineers" will have solved most of the problems in the manufactoring process and you'll probably get a thump :-) Automobile assembly work is a very skilled job. Especially in these days of lean manufacturing where you have teams following cars from one end of the line to the other.

Factory floor workers may have different skills from the "engineers" - but they're certainly not minimal.

Not to mention the way that lean/rapid product development processes are blurring the line between the "engineers" and the "workers" anyway.

But I begin to rant.

I think engineering/factories and architecture/building are deeply flawed metaphors for software development. Any time I see one little warning bells start ringing in my head. They are usually based on "folk" ideas of how these processes work that have little resemblance to reality.

Ahem... sorry... still ranting... stop now :-)

All I was trying to get at is that not knowing the algortihm to calculate sin() correctly and efficiently on my favourite CPU doesnt stop me from using the function when its provided by the standard libraries to solve simpler problems like whether that tree in the back yard will fall on my house when it gets cut down.

Which is, of course, perfectly reasonable :-)

As an aside does anybody know if Shell sort has been fully analysed yet?

I seem to recall that Knuth had a chunk more on the analysis of Shell sort in the second edition of his Sorting and Searching volume - but I don't own a copy. Can't really remember the details, just that I recall it was different from the first edition. Anybody got one to hand?

Comment on Re^4: Analogies & metaphor (was Mathematics eq CompSci)

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Re^5: Analogies & metaphor (was Mathematics eq CompSci) by demerphq (Chancellor) on May 04, 2005 at 16:34 UTC
You go up to a assembly worker and tell them their job requires minimal skills and that the "engineers" will have solved most of the problems in the manufactoring process and you'll probably get a thump :-) Thanks. You are right to call me on this and you are right that i expressed myself poorly. To clarify (and save myself a thump :-) I shouldnt have said minimal skills. I probably should have said "minimal engineering skills". The point is that the folks working on the drawing board most likely have engineering degrees and the folks working the floor dont. If thats no longer true due to advances in the manufacturing process then forgive me for being a touch out of date. (I can imagine that robotics has probably eliminated much of the "unskilled labour" from the factory floor.) I think engineering/factories and architecture/building are deeply flawed metaphors for software development. Any time I see one little warning bells start ringing in my head. They are usually based on "folk" ideas of how these processes work that have little resemblance to reality. That would be a meditation id love to read. I still believe that there are things to be learned by such comparisons however. In this context however id like to emphasise that the process is not really what im comparing here. Im comparing the skill types and levels required of the different players in the game not really the process by which they work together. I seem to recall that Knuth had a chunk more on the analysis of Shell sort in the second edition of his Sorting and Searching volume Im pretty sure the edition im referring to was the second edition which does a fair amount of analysis, but also says that there are still unanswered questions about the algorithm. --- $world=~s/war/peace/g	[reply]
Re^6: Analogies & metaphor (was Mathematics eq CompSci) by adrianh (Chancellor) on May 05, 2005 at 16:24 UTC
I still believe that there are things to be learned by such comparisons however. Oh definitely. A recent example would be agile software development methodologies like XP, Crystal and Scrum. They've got a lot in common with lean manufacturing processes that companies like Toyota have been refining for decades. Once people got over the misconception of how they imagined manufacturing processes worked there was (and still is) a lot to learn. If you're interested in this stuff The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production and Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit are good reads. The problem is that people keep trying to learn the wrong lessons through popular misconceptions of how other industries work.	[reply]


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