May 30, 2012 at 10:15 am
djackson 22568 (5/30/2012)
...
how bad Cobol programs were?
...
Really? Although I may also agree to an extent (considering a COBOL application I helped support and extend for 11 years), but I also have to take exception as well.
Yes, the application I supported is (yes, is as it is still running today) the best case for spagetti COBOL I can give you. The core of the application is still that bad, but as we extended the application building additional subroutines, those were written using strong, structured code and are easier to support and enhance.
It all depends on who is writing the code and if they truely understand what it is they are doing. Also, in regards to the application mentioned, I know that there were many trade-offs made due to compiler limitations. You work with what you have, and do the best you can. Could the application have been written better, I would have to say yes. It is unfortunate that we were never able to rewrite the application, we just never had the time or resources to accomplish it.
Edit: fix a spelling error.
May 30, 2012 at 10:16 am
jcrawf02 (5/30/2012)
JP Dakota (5/30/2012)
Disagree completely. The question of whether we should or should not be doing something is what leads to advancement. If we never asked that, we would just have faster ways of doing the same thing, not real change. Aerodynamic horse and buggy versus the possibility of self-driving cars soon.History has shown that the process, and the evaluation thereof, follows the technology, not the other way around.
I'm sorry, trying to figure out how to say this without being contentious, but I can't quite pull it off. That's a ridiculous statement, how would the process *ever* move ahead of technology to complete the process? What you said is that it isn't important to ask whether we should be doing something or not. However, without asking that question, we would never make the jump to new technology, which would therefore allow the process to change? Necessity is the mother of invention, after all, invention isn't the mother of necessity.
I agree with you. As a special case, though, there are times when things progress for no apparent good reason. For example, the huge number of useless iPad and iPhone apps. But that is really the exception, and one might be able to argue that this isn't really progress in itself, that the progess was the platform. I guess it depends on your point of view.
Regardless, I definitely agree with you that generally speaking, we identify a need to improve, then we identify a method to make the improvement. That doesn't exclude those cases where we "stumble" upon an improvement like anti-biotics, while researching something else.
Dave
May 30, 2012 at 10:18 am
jay-h (5/30/2012)
JP Dakota (5/30/2012... Imagine this - my Grandmother witnessed the transition from horse-and-buggy to man walking on the moon....
Sad that final milestone was 40 years ago, so that XCor founder Jeff Greason's son asked him "is it true that people used to fly to the moon when you were a boy?" Boldness and courage has decayed into timidity and fear of change.
What else would you expect when you give a government agency a monopoly on technical development?
May 30, 2012 at 10:19 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (5/30/2012)
Robert Domitz (5/30/2012)
I, for one, am a programmer: my expertise is in designing and building software. I am not a writer, nor do I aspire to be one. I would rather lay out the structure of a document, then turn over the writing to someone who chooses to be a technical writer. They will do a much better job than I can.But, alas, 'tis not to be.....
Makes me wonder if we ought to still have assistants. Unfortunately so many managers tasked with writing and communicating don't do a good job either.
But unfortunately assistants' jobs are usually the first ones to be chopped.
May 30, 2012 at 10:20 am
Jcrawf02,
I also agree, business processes usually do precede technology. Now that said, technology can act as an accelerator to the process. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 30, 2012 at 10:24 am
It's an interesting point of view and I would further argue that removal of the secretary, and the empowerment of the individual to take responsibility for their own correspondence, together with the massive leap in technology since then, has actually led to an information explosion which is detrimental to our ability as a species to communicate. There's now so much unnecessary information that filtering through it (arguably) has removed the benefits of having that technology to hand, which is meant to be a communication enabler.
How many e-mails do you receive every day? Perhaps in the 40s and 50s, every letter was important - people took more care over their communication since every communication took so long - but now perhaps 1 in 10 e-mails / texts / calls is important. It takes perhaps as long now to read and reply to the important e-mail as it used to take to read and reply to the typed letter!
---
Note to developers:Want to get the best help? Click here https://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/forum-etiquette-how-to-post-datacode-on-a-forum-to-get-the-best-help (Jeff Moden)
My blog: http://uksqldba.blogspot.com
Visit http://www.DerekColley.co.uk to find out more about me.
May 30, 2012 at 10:25 am
Lynn Pettis (5/30/2012)
djackson 22568 (5/30/2012)
...
how bad Cobol programs were?
...
Really? Although I may also agree to an extent (considering a COBOL application I helped support and extend for 11 years), but I also have to take exception as well.
Yikes! I am not even going to read your response until I apologize! My intent obviously was not communicated. (See other posts in this thread about communication!)
What I meant to convey was that a lot of non-programmers were put into programming roles who were not capable of programming logically or effectively.
What I most certainly DID NOT MEAN TO CONVEY was that all VB or Cobol programmers were deficient. I myself have been a VB programmer, and I believe I was an exceptionally good one. I must apologize for incorrecting communicating anything derogatory towards an entire group of people, and I hope I have not caused any angst for anyone in my error!
Dave
Dave
May 30, 2012 at 10:27 am
It all depends on who is wirting the code and if they truely understand what it is they are doing.
Now that is one powerful statement there. It makes all the difference in the world.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 30, 2012 at 10:48 am
TravisDBA (5/30/2012)
It all depends on who is wirting the code and if they truely understand what it is they are doing.
Now that is one powerful statement there. It makes all the difference in the world.:-D
Fixed my spelling error that I didn't notice until I read your post. Hate it when my fingers get ahead of my brain.
May 30, 2012 at 11:06 am
Flexibility is a function of complexity.
When the technology isnt appropriately abstracted it's harder to use and ends up getting in the way.
Often the very need for another layer isnt understood.
This is more than a design flaw its a critical thinking error and a time killer.
As a result we're unnecessarily exposed to things we dont understand but need to. [/u]
Executives fretting over fonts and format for example.
On the other hand, very few truly understand electricity but everone knows how to turn on a light.
Perhaps, we as a species havent evolved far enough to grasp the true meaning of the power now available at our fingertips? Of course, we could'nt even consider the problem if the technology didnt exist.
Social networks will wax and wane but social scientists will probably debate the forms and effects of 'internet anonymity' for years to come while I will curse the joker who used IEEE math in a business app:-P.
May 30, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Related post by Steven Few: http://www.perceptualedge.com/blog/?p=1235
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
May 30, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Invention can be the Mother of Necessity. Someone invented a plug-n electric car. Now we need charging stations all over the country. Someone invented shared networks, and now we need ways to secure them and apps that can exploit them. Someone invented online role-playing games, and now I need a way to keep my granddaughter from playing WOW until her eyes burn out.
Everything ever invented is a marketing opportunity for someone clever to convince us that we need something that enhances our experience of the new invention.
As far as the free market goes, the guy who invented the car was good, but the guy who invented the idea of selling you the 'undercoating' was a genius.:-D
May 31, 2012 at 12:09 am
I'd love to have a young beautiful lady serving me all day long...
May 31, 2012 at 7:29 am
djackson 22568 (5/30/2012)
Does anyone recall how bad the majority of VB development used to be, how bad Cobol development could be, when development was turned over to untrained individuals?
I've seen far worse spaghetti code in C++ than anything I've seen in Cobol. And it was written by trained individuals.
Training for developers can have value if it's done properly, but most of what's done is worse than a waste of time. It bores the recipients excruciatingly, teaches them to do things wrong instead of right, and risks making them believe that because they've done the course/passed an exam they know everything.
In a relational database forum it seems very odd to see a claim that untrained individuals perform badly, since people like Ted Codd and Chris Date had no computer training other than a brief induction. Actually it seems odd to have anyone concerned with software development claiming that, because in the area of software architecture, development methodologies, and language design most of the good things came from people who had to teach themselvs (Hoare, Dijkstra, Jones, Abrial, Colmerauer, Milner,...) not from people who were trained. Of course will change now (in fact the change has already begun) since the industry is becoming dominated by people who were trained.
Tom
May 31, 2012 at 7:45 am
SSCertifiable,
I've seen so many cases where mediocrity is rewarded because of those training certificates. My best/worst example was also a c++ program done by "experts." It took a year and a half of my lobbying and 2 external consultants before management was convinced that their performance and stability issues were due to bad code and not a bad database engine.
Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 38 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply