[TUHS] Anyone ever heard of teaching a case study of Initial Unix?

[Vincenzo Nicosia]

On Wed, Jul 03, 2024 at 05:29:26PM -0600, Marc Rochkind wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 3, 2024 at 9:27???AM Vincenzo Nicosia <katolaz at freaknet.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > ...
> >
> > The programmers considered as "fungible workforce" by mainstream
> > software engineering and project management theories are *paid* to to
> > their programming job, and they mostly have to carry that job over
> > working on prescribed objectives and timelines which have been decided
> > by somebody else, managers who know nothing at all about software
> > development. Personal interest in the project, passion, motivation,
> > curiosity, creative power, sense of beauty, the joy of belonging to a
> > community of likeminded people, are never part of the equation, at any
> > point.
> >
> >

[cut]

> 
> I have never met a programmer or group of programmers who were always
> right. Most often, they are ignorant of financing, regulatory constraints,
> product schedules, commitments, staffing issues, and everything else that
> isn't coding. (There are exceptions, but they are uncommon.) Management, by
> definition, is the art and science of using resources to reach an
> objective. Programmers generally are concerned only with themselves as a
> resource and with their own personal programming objective. It is unusual
> to find a programmer who understands management.
> 


I agree my view is cynical. Maybe that's because I cannot find anything
romantic or poetic in "financing, regulatory constraints, product
schedules, commitments, staffing issues, and everything else that isn't
coding". Maybe because I have learned on experience that those things
are just there to ensure that the clients pay their invoices, while they
rarely contribute to anything durable, well-engineered, great, or
beautiful. Anything that can be considered a truly good case study of
software development. But I am sure I am just too cynical here :)

HND

Enzo

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