Buxton: As long as one has good reason to believe that the research content of a system is low, one can avoid either of these extremes.
Kinslow: Personally, after 18 years in the business I would like just once, just once, to be able to do the same thing again. Just once to try an evolutionary step instead of a confounded revolutionary one.
David and Fraser: (from their Position paper)
»The ‘software gap’ may not be immutable, but closing it will require metamorphosis in the practice of software production and its handmaiden, software design.«
Gill: (from his Position paper)
»We can see no swift and sure way to improve the technology, and would view any claims to achieve this with extreme caution. We believe that the only way ahead lies through the steady development of the best existing techniques.«
Ross: My main worry is in fact that somebody in a position of power will recognise this crisis — it is a crisis right now, and has been for some years, and it’s good that we are getting around to recognising the fact and believe someone who claims to have a breakthrough, an easy solution. The problem will take a lot of hard work to solve. There is no worse word than ‘breakthrough’ in discussing possible solutions.
Perlis: There are many good, albeit somewhat limited systems in the field now. I believe the best hope for a solution to our problems is evolution from these systems. Solutions are not likely to come out of designing a new SABRE system from scratch; that system should have been a warning to us five years ago.
7.1.5. SUMMARY
Rather than attempt a direct summary of the set of sometimes conflicting points of view given above, it is perhaps better to finish with just one last quotation.
Gill: (from his Position paper)
»It is of the utmost importance that all those responsible for large projects involving computers should take care to avoid making demands on software that go far beyond the present state of the technology, unless the very considerable risks involved can be tolerated.«
7.2. EDUCATION
Most of the remarks quoted below were made during a special discussion devoted to software engineering education.
Perlis: It is a fact that there are software engineers around today who are quite competent. There are systems in many places which are quite stable and which provide magnificent service. It is also the case that there are large numbers of efforts, containing large numbers of programs and programmers, which have no software engineers on them, that is that people function as though they did not know how to build software. I have a number of questions:
1. Is it possible to have software engineers in the numbers in which we need them, without formal software engineering education?
2. Is software engineering the same as Computer Science?
3. Is software engineering best provided by baccalaureate programs in universities? Or by adult education courses? Or by two year courses following the standard grade school education?
4. Do the people educated in these programs have a growing and future role in our society?
5. Will they be useful enough in a firm or government or university, and is their value such that they can distribute their talents in other activities, or must they always remain programmers?