software engineering;  was: Is this official blog article intended as a joke?

Actually, the 'blog makes a useful point:

Most computer science students get to learn high-level programming languages and application development but they don’t really understand computers.

JMO/YMMV:

Now, while interfacing to the real world is fun, RasPi doesn't really address the high-level application problem.  It's still a GNU/Linux box, running a mainframe operating system with dozens of processes.  It's darn cheap for a mainframe, but it's still a mainframe.

If you really want to learn what computers do IMO you really need to learn assembly language and run it on a real mini- or micro-computer with no operating system present to protect you from stomping all over your code and data so that your program goes off to la-la land.  That's when you really see that all that's in computer memory is bit-strings, and the computer will interpret them as instructions or data depending on where you told it to execute -- whether you meant to or not.  Once you've mastered the machine-language level, then you can understand why your C program is misbehaving in that extraordinary fashion.  IMO this mastery is necessary for someone to be called a computer scientist, just as you expect an EE to know how to use Kirchhoff's Laws and a mathematician to be able to do Epsilon-Delta proofs.

> IMO this mastery is necessary for someone to be called a computer scientist,

Of course, computer science is a big field, with many specialties, and many layers

of abstraction, and it's entirely possible for hardware specialists to know very little

about software, and vice versa.  And theoretical computer scientists often know very

little about either software or hardware, focusing their attention on topics like

algorithmic efficiencies that don't provide any benefit on realisitic sized data sets.

Dijkstra famously said "computer science is no more about computers than

astronomy is about telescopes."

Of course, it's still important to know how to read an abend dump when you have to.

coder27 wrote:

 

As you probably know, there is a software engineering notion of "information hiding"

that is often misunderstood.  The goal is to separate interface from implementation,

with the implementation details hidden from users of the abstraction so that they can't

unwittingly rely on them, which would endanger the system if the details are changed.

I think the key is designing excellent interfaces between layers and writing excellent documentation to define those interfaces so that people can develop separate pieces and have them work together properly when integrated.  This goes along with information hiding, since if the interfaces are designed and documented well enough there is rarely a need to peek beyond the interface.

coder27 wrote:

 

As you probably know, there is a software engineering notion of "information hiding"

I'm aware of the idea, and that most current programmers have fallen for it.

You can't seriously think that if the interface specifies that you're getting an integer binary value that it's ok for the implementation to change it to a trinary integer (or anything else for that matter - opaque value maybe).  To do that obviously breaks the agreement the interface provides, the consumer no longer knows how to store the value it's been given never mind what to do with it.

Indeed, whether we like it, agree or not, the consumer is inextricably and unavoidably reliant on the implementation - even if it's not allowed to know any of the hidden details.

I was reminded about this discussion while reading the stuff on avoid_safe_mode=1 in the other thread earlier - everything hidden behind an interface that the user likely doesn't even know exists. Closed source too, so no way to know the details. You're presented with something that's not right, not expected, and with no explanation. Not helpful.  What's worse is that he's not only dependant on the implementation, he needs to know all those hidden details to work out how to fix it.

Morgaine's right, the whole thing is a mess. I don't have a better alternative, or have a clue how to fix it, but I know what we're doing today is the wrong thing and we're unlikely to solve it while we keep digging.

John Beetem wrote:

 

Well, not everybody is a good salesman.

Very true. Engineers also often have a way of seeing the facts quite clearly, whether they like what they see is a different question.  Salesmen don't care about the facts and that tends to put salesmen and engineers at odds - the engineer can smell the bullshit the salesman is shoveling regardless of how good the salesman makes it appear.

I had the misfortune of having a salesman in the desk over the partition from me for a while, not a pleasant experience and if hadn't been for the partition it would have been much worse

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

In fact, the finger of blame should mostly point at the "geniuses" of the field because they should be informed enough to understand the root cause of the problem, and able to communicate it to others, including management and beancounters.  They aren't, and they don't.

Bit of a catch22 there though, I tend to find that even when you do understand a problem it's difficult if not impossible to communicate it to non technical people because fundamentally we don't think in the same terms anymore.

selsinork wrote:

 

Bit of a catch22 there though, I tend to find that even when you do understand a problem it's difficult if not impossible to communicate it to non technical people because fundamentally we don't think in the same terms anymore.

Yes, communication can be very difficult.  It becomes even more difficult when engineers see the problem but don't yet have a full solution to offer, because then the communication can be perceived as destruction of an ongoing process without purpose rather than an earnest warning that a cliff lies ahead.

The software crisis lies in that category,  the problem being blatantly obvious to anyone with even half an eye open, yet no full solution being available even in the halls of academia.  Fortunately many partial solutions exist, or at least aids that help avoid the most elementary sources of failure, such as defensive programming practices and test-driven development.

Rather remarkably though, and very unfortunately, advocating even for such simple and relatively painless strategies often falls on deaf ears, for one really terrible reason --- we're human, and deep down it seems that we don't really want to face our own fallibility, even those who recognize the problem.  The "coolness" of programming exacerbates this further, as perhaps a majority of programmers are so busy having fun that they have no inclination to look further than the tips of their fingers.

The problem isn't going to be solved for a long while yet.  There are too many factors reinforcing it, and they're not just technical.

Morgaine.

Hey all, I have moved this discussion to our Raspberry Pi group from Feedback and Support.

Dave,

Hey all, I have moved this discussion to our Raspberry Pi group from Feedback and Support.

The article really is intended for Feedback and Support.  We're just keeping the discussion

going so it stays visible.

selsinork wrote:

 

... Salesmen don't care about the facts and that tends to put salesmen and engineers at odds - the engineer can smell the bullshit the salesman is shoveling regardless of how good the salesman makes it appear.

 

I had the misfortune of having a salesman in the desk over the partition from me for a while, not a pleasant experience and if hadn't been for the partition it would have been much worse

I had a similar experience, though in my case the salesman two cubes away was quite likeable and entertaining.  However, I often heard him talking to prospects trying to sell capabilities I knew were nowhere near being ready for customers.

I could always tell when he was lying, because he prefixed each lie with "to be perfectly honest..."

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

... The software crisis lies in that category,  the problem being blatantly obvious to anyone with even half an eye open, yet no full solution being available even in the halls of academia... 

Personally, I don't expect answers to come from academia, at least not from computer science.  I have seen way too much hostility to new ideas in academia (personal experience limited to USA), and anything that requires cooperation is unlikely to get very far in that environment.  Look at the some of the shouting matches we occasionally see here at element14, and we're usually Quiet and Refined .

I see solutions coming from individuals or maybe groups of 2-3, and those solutions will have to succeed in spite of the hostility they will face.

John Beetem wrote:

 

I have seen way too much hostility to new ideas in academia (personal experience limited to USA), and anything that requires cooperation is unlikely to get very far in that environment.

Unfortunately, I have personal experience of that resistance to new ideas in a place where you would expect new ideas to flourish.  I used to advocate strongly on behalf of the emerging Usenet and the early Internet at staff meetings, and as a young lecturer I suffered not only strong denial of their value but outright ridicule by some respected old timers around the table.  It wasn't pleasant.

However, and this is important to keep in mind, the resistance came from a few individuals, and should not be generalized to academia as a whole.  That would be simply incorrect.  As a whole, academia is a strong incubator of new ideas, despite the occasional flawed human.  It gives people time to think (students as well, they're often uninhibited in their thinking and can be very insightful), including the time to think laterally, and very many do exactly that.

John Beetem wrote:

 

I have seen way too much hostility to new ideas in academia (personal experience limited to USA), and anything that requires cooperation is unlikely to get very far in that environment.

Unfortunately, I have personal experience of that resistance to new ideas in a place where you would expect new ideas to flourish.  I used to advocate strongly on behalf of the emerging Usenet and the early Internet at staff meetings, and as a young lecturer I suffered not only strong denial of their value but outright ridicule by some respected old timers around the table.  It wasn't pleasant.

However, and this is important to keep in mind, the resistance came from a few individuals, and should not be generalized to academia as a whole.  That would be simply incorrect.  As a whole, academia is a strong incubator of new ideas, despite the occasional flawed human.  It gives people time to think (students as well, they're often uninhibited in their thinking and can be very insightful), including the time to think laterally, and very many do exactly that.