Re: RE: RE: Not knowing

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Strive for excellence, not perfection.
Excellence is attainable - perfection isn't.

Rob Berendt
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin




"Michael Naughton" <mnaughton@juddwire.com>
Sent by: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
10/30/2002 02:06 PM
Please respond to midrange-l

        To:     midrange-l@midrange.com
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        Subject:        Re: RE: RE: Not knowing


My take is just a little different -- I don't think the problem is that
programmers know just enough to get by; the problem is that standards for
"getting by" have gotten so low. If programs that kept breaking and
needing to be fixed were considered unacceptable, then programmers who
wanted to remain programmers would need to learn how to avoid producing
them. (Again, this is a common problem -- if business leaders who acted
like crooks were punished instead of rewarded, fewer of them would do so;
if politicians who failed to deliver on their promises were voted out of
office, they would stop saying anything to get elected; etc.)

Clearly, some people on this list have very high standards for "getting
by" as programmers. IMHO, that's a good thing, but I also think that the
history of the world shows us that you don't need to have the highest
standards to still be successful (by whatever means you want to measure).
I'm not saying that's the way I would have done things if I had created
the universe, but I think that's the way it is. And how many of us would
choose to forego in our lives all of the things that haven't been produced
by "absolutely the best" process?

midrange-l@midrange.com writes:
>I believe that I, and many others on this list, would STRONGLY disagree
>with
>this sentiment:  "on the whole I think a case can be made that the world
>in
>general has benefitted from the fact that so many people can now use
>computers for so many things -- in large part because of programmers who
>knew just enough to get by".
>
>Many would view this as the PROBLEM with software production today.
>
>The old saw, "There's never enough time to do it right, but always seems
>to
>be enough time to go back and fix it" is, unfortunately, all too easy...
>KISS gets a lot of lip service, imv...


Mike Naughton
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Judd Wire, Inc.
124 Turnpike Road
Turners Falls, MA  01376
413-863-4357 x444
mnaughton@juddwire.com

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