So what is the difference between a software engineer and computerscientist?

[John Larkin]

Came across 2 EE and CS doctors last week designing new kit and lamenting
sadly that they'd given up on a software PID algorithm (in C of course)
they'd written to replace the standard analogue PID loop control opamp,
caps and R's in a piece of kit similar to what I was also working on.
Seems they hadn't taken into account some mechanical aspects or noticed that
two variable delay elements were at work, hence bemusement that I seemed
happy to 'blindly' stick a 0.47uF in place of a 100nF to control overshoot
on my own stuff.
Mild prodding on my part turned up a "Yes but how could I teach that?".
Seems CS teaching (like the C language) is willfully moving up a path of
abstraction in a bid to avoid contact with real world messiness.
... The Philosophy depts did it, we can surely do the same!.
UK (oxbridge led) academic authorities are loathe to be sullied by the word
"vocational" but something needs to be done if we are to survive as a
trading nation and at the end-of-the-day some poor sodding programmer will
still have to make that digital PID loop actually work

I had lunch last week with the Dean of Science and Engineering at a
major US university. He said that he agrees with a number of fellow
deans at other universities: Computer Science is broken.

He talked me into endowing a modest scholarship; it *was* a pretty
good lunch. I want to somehow specify that it be granted to kids who
tinker with circuits, or at least program in assembly.

Good book: "Dreaming in Code"

John

 

[john jardine]

[...]

I had lunch last week with the Dean of Science and Engineering at a
major US university. He said that he agrees with a number of fellow
deans at other universities: Computer Science is broken.

He talked me into endowing a modest scholarship; it *was* a pretty
good lunch. I want to somehow specify that it be granted to kids who
tinker with circuits, or at least program in assembly.

Good book: "Dreaming in Code"

John

Nice one!.
I'm feeling analog(ue) may now be a lost cause but that 'assembler only'
idea would seem key to rationalis(z)ing the whole CS paradigm.
john

 

[John Larkin]

[...]

I had lunch last week with the Dean of Science and Engineering at a
major US university. He said that he agrees with a number of fellow
deans at other universities: Computer Science is broken.

He talked me into endowing a modest scholarship; it *was* a pretty
good lunch. I want to somehow specify that it be granted to kids who
tinker with circuits, or at least program in assembly.

Good book: "Dreaming in Code"

John

Nice one!.
I'm feeling analog(ue) may now be a lost cause but that 'assembler only'
idea would seem key to rationalis(z)ing the whole CS paradigm.
john

I'm thinking that programming should not be taught at all as a
distinct major. Everybody should study something real, and learn to
program on the side, in the way that engineers used to take a couple
of drafting courses.

Goodness knows that programming majors really can't program.

John

 

[Ed Prochak]

[...]

I had lunch last week with the Dean of Science and Engineering at a
major US university. He said that he agrees with a number of fellow
deans at other universities: Computer Science is broken.
He talked me into endowing a modest scholarship; it *was* a pretty
good lunch. I want to somehow specify that it be granted to kids who
tinker with circuits, or at least program in assembly.
Good book: "Dreaming in Code"
John

Nice one!.
I'm feeling analog(ue) may now be a lost cause but that 'assembler only'
idea would seem key to rationalis(z)ing the whole CS paradigm.
john

I'm thinking that programming should not be taught at all as a
distinct major. Everybody should study something real, and learn to
program on the side, in the way that engineers used to take a couple
of drafting courses.

Goodness knows that programming majors really can't program.

John

I'm coming in on the tail end of this. Initially I was going to say I
disagree,
but I think I agree with you, John.

Some of the thread I saw is comparing CS and EE. I think there is a
third option: SE.
Software Engineering. The program needs to mix enough theory (e.g
fundamental algorithms) with enough real work environments (e.g. how
do you configure an apache web sever) with real work development
(working on team projects, not all individual assignments). There
should be some real hardware work in there too.

It all boils down to two things:
Can you understand word problems?
-- the accountants and product development managers don't understand
programming terminology, so you have to learn theirs. Marketing
droids might speak of "real-time web pages" which you have to
tramslate to real programming rewuirements

Can you find (nearly) optimal solutions for the implementation?
-- There's a quote I like to use in this context: "an engineer is
someone that can do for $1 what any damn fool can do for $2. And
there's another aspect I see neglected often: It is not how well it
works when it works, but how well it works when it doesn't work that
really matters. IOW how does the application behave in the worstcase?

It is an issue of teahing students how to THINK. Maybe that's why some
of the better ones come from non-programming backgrounds. (I may be
biased here. My undergraduate degree was in Physics. My Masters was in
Electrical Engineering but it was a software concentration option.)

Ed Prochak

 

[John Larkin]

[...]

I had lunch last week with the Dean of Science and Engineering at a
major US university. He said that he agrees with a number of fellow
deans at other universities: Computer Science is broken.

He talked me into endowing a modest scholarship; it *was* a pretty
good lunch. I want to somehow specify that it be granted to kids who
tinker with circuits, or at least program in assembly.

Good book: "Dreaming in Code"

Nice one!.
I'm feeling analog(ue) may now be a lost cause but that 'assembler only'
idea would seem key to rationalis(z)ing the whole CS paradigm.
john

I'm thinking that programming should not be taught at all as a
distinct major. Everybody should study something real, and learn to
program on the side, in the way that engineers used to take a couple
of drafting courses.

Goodness knows that programming majors really can't program.

John

I'm coming in on the tail end of this. Initially I was going to say I
disagree,
but I think I agree with you, John.

Some of the thread I saw is comparing CS and EE. I think there is a
third option: SE.
Software Engineering. The program needs to mix enough theory (e.g
fundamental algorithms) with enough real work environments (e.g. how
do you configure an apache web sever) with real work development
(working on team projects, not all individual assignments). There
should be some real hardware work in there too.

It all boils down to two things:
Can you understand word problems?
-- the accountants and product development managers don't understand
programming terminology, so you have to learn theirs. Marketing
droids might speak of "real-time web pages" which you have to
tramslate to real programming rewuirements

Can you find (nearly) optimal solutions for the implementation?
-- There's a quote I like to use in this context: "an engineer is
someone that can do for $1 what any damn fool can do for $2. And
there's another aspect I see neglected often: It is not how well it
works when it works, but how well it works when it doesn't work that
really matters. IOW how does the application behave in the worstcase?

It is an issue of teahing students how to THINK. Maybe that's why some
of the better ones come from non-programming backgrounds. (I may be
biased here. My undergraduate degree was in Physics. My Masters was in
Electrical Engineering but it was a software concentration option.)

Ed Prochak

Well, something is sure broken. Big, gigabuck-scale software projects
are almost always late and over budget, and some fraction, a third
maybe, are absolute failures. Eveything more complex than a toaster
oven is usually littered with bugs, sometimes thousands of bugs.
Performance like that deserves to be called neither Science nor
Engineering.

Imagine if a third of our bridges, buildings, and airplanes fell down.

What Computer Science should do is figure out how to get a group of
people to produce good code in a predictable manner.

When the best programmers never studied programming, something is
wrong with CS/CE education. Reminds me of the experiment where they
found that graduates of the Cooks and Bakers school were better aerial
gunners than graduates of the Aerial Gunnery school.

John

 

[Vladimir Vassilevsky]

John Larkin wrote:


This way of teaching was practiced in my days in the university. The
side effect is scanty knowledge and getting into the habit of
reinventing the wheels.

I'd say only about 5% of all graduates are worthy regardless of their
major.


This is impossible. What is possible is to teach the different
approaches and demonstrate how and why the things are done.

Well, something is sure broken. Big, gigabuck-scale software projects
are almost always late and over budget, and some fraction, a third
maybe, are absolute failures.

Any kinds of big and small business and technology projects are often
late, over budget and going to nowhere. Nothing is broken, this is a
real life.

Eveything more complex than a toaster
oven is usually littered with bugs, sometimes thousands of bugs.

And everybody seems to be quite happy with it. The things do not have to
be perfect; good enough is good enough.

Performance like that deserves to be called neither Science nor
Engineering.

Imagine if a third of our bridges, buildings, and airplanes fell down.

Look at the almost every week a bridge, a building, a ship or an
airplane is going down. The more or less reliable things are only the
things which were designed 30 years ago and produced in the big
quantities. So what?

What Computer Science should do is figure out how to get a group of
people to produce good code in a predictable manner.

The recipe is very simple: to get it for good, every project requires
about 3 times more effort, time and money then it can be allocated for it.

When the best programmers never studied programming, something is
wrong with CS/CE education.

The meaning of education is something like a probation. One has to prove
his dedication to EE by spending so many of his best years in the college.

Reminds me of the experiment where they
found that graduates of the Cooks and Bakers school were better aerial
gunners than graduates of the Aerial Gunnery school.

That only tells that the programming is getting more and more into the
blue color profession.

Vladimir Vassilevsky

DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

http://www.abvolt.com

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

When the best programmers never studied programming, something is
wrong with CS/CE education. Reminds me of the experiment where
they found that graduates of the Cooks and Bakers school were
better aerial gunners than graduates of the Aerial Gunnery school.

I think the answer is simple. The best programmers learned
fundamentals, not the language du jour nor the current hot
application suite. It also helps if their IQ exceeds that of a
parrot.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

I think the answer is simple. The best programmers learned
fundamentals, not the language du jour nor the current hot
application suite. It also helps if their IQ exceeds that of a
parrot.

Programmers learn by writing programs. The bigger and more complex the more
they learn.

 

[John Larkin]

Programmers learn by writing programs. The bigger and more complex the more
they learn.

But the best programs are small and simple. So most programmers are
learning the wrong lessons; they are indulging themselves in the games
of complexity and abstraction, and teaching themselves how to fail.

The more I program, the shorter my programs become, the faster they
are finished, and the fewer bugs they have.

"Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by
definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan

John

 

[Homer J Simpson]

But the best programs are small and simple.

No, the best are the correct size for the task. Robust, well designed,
easily maintained.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

But that's rare. Given the C-inspired style of building a large
program out of a lot of small subroutines, it would seem that each sub
can be small and fairly simple, thus easily documented, tested, and
inspected for correctness. So correctness of the program as a whole is
an interface management issue, which lead programmers and managers
should learn how to be good at. They're usually not.

Most code these days is just a heap of characters, undocumented and
uncommented and largely untested. No wonder people can't put together
reliable systems from bunches of these.

I worked on a fairly large system written in C. I needed to modify a part of
it and was shocked at how poorly the algorithms were understood by the
programmers.

I also asked why they wrote it in C. I was told for speed. This is for a
system which responds to user input from the keyboard and submits queries to
an Oracle database. How fast do you have to be to keep up with typing?

 

[John Larkin]

No, the best are the correct size for the task. Robust, well designed,
easily maintained.

But that's rare. Given the C-inspired style of building a large
program out of a lot of small subroutines, it would seem that each sub
can be small and fairly simple, thus easily documented, tested, and
inspected for correctness. So correctness of the program as a whole is
an interface management issue, which lead programmers and managers
should learn how to be good at. They're usually not.

Most code these days is just a heap of characters, undocumented and
uncommented and largely untested. No wonder people can't put together
reliable systems from bunches of these.

John

 

[Joerg]

... snip ...



For long term viability nothing beats education in the
fundamentals. My own background is mathematics and physics,
followed by heavy hardware experience. That basis lets me acquire
whatever I need. Meanwhile, to take an extreme, the poor klutzes
who have been taught which button to click in Excel are floundering
on anything else.

"...followed by heavy hardware experience." That's the ticket. The best
programmers I know are the ones who would not shy away probing a few
signals with a scope, fix their truck, repair the oil burner of the
central furnace when it broke etc. Including my father. He had to
automate a cold-rolled steel line with 2K of RAM. To the younger
readers: No, 2K is not a typo. And he taught me how to diagnose and fix
an oil burner ;-)

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

"...followed by heavy hardware experience." That's the ticket. The best
programmers I know are the ones who would not shy away probing a few
signals with a scope, fix their truck, repair the oil burner of the
central furnace when it broke etc. Including my father. He had to
automate a cold-rolled steel line with 2K of RAM. To the younger
readers: No, 2K is not a typo. And he taught me how to diagnose and fix
an oil burner ;-)

I agree. Of course, I'm biased.

I have a fairly complete workbench, with two oscilloscopes, one analog
and one digital, a 16-channel logic analyzer, signal generator,
counter, 7 1/2 digit bench multimeter from HP, two GPIB triple power
supplies from Tek, another basic power supply, soldering iron, a
variety of programmers and ICE tools, etc. Plenty of spare parts
around, including a variety of lenses and so on, so I can cobble up
things as I need them. I can read schematics and can even sometimes
contribute an idea here and there or find a problem in them.

I also can do everything from changing liquids to pulling axles and
replace bearings to milling new parts for my vehicles. I can cut and
weld and I've made some really great gate hinges and various parts I
can't buy elsewhere for the farm here. I know my way around an oil
burner, too -- though that was learned more recently when I actually
had to work on a problem with the firebox temperature sensor.

I can also tend and milk cows, know my way around a horse, slop the
hogs, take care of the chickens, operate a JD backhoe and front
loader, separate cream from milk with a hand-crank and make butter in
a mason jar, and build a barn alone.

But I suppose that's why I enjoy embedded work so much. I get to ask
questions, interfere with, and kibitz on everyone else's tasks and
make their life a real pain.

Jon

 

[John Larkin]

"...followed by heavy hardware experience." That's the ticket. The best
programmers I know are the ones who would not shy away probing a few
signals with a scope, fix their truck, repair the oil burner of the
central furnace when it broke etc. Including my father. He had to
automate a cold-rolled steel line with 2K of RAM. To the younger
readers: No, 2K is not a typo. And he taught me how to diagnose and fix
an oil burner ;-)

I did a multiplexed fire alarm/hvac control remote with a 6802 uP. It
did software single-slope a/d conversion (4 channels at a time),
remote contact supervision, relay drivers, stuff like that. Binary
comm protocol with CRC. Software UART in the receive direction,
software UART and FSK generation for transmit. Ran with 128 bytes of
ram and 1024 bytes of eprom. There are still jillions of them running
in buildings in Manhattan.

John

 

[Didi]

I did a multiplexed fire alarm/hvac control remote with a 6802 uP. It

did software single-slope a/d conversion (4 channels at a time),
remote contact supervision, relay drivers, stuff like that.

Then you must remember the D5 kit?... One of my first endeavours was
to make its monitor run on a 6800 board I had built using an
indicator/keyboard another guy in the neighbourhood had built.
The published sources (Herve Tireford was the author of these
again, IIRC) were something I was learning from back then...
I somehow refuse to believe it has been well > 20 years ago.
Did you use an Exorciser? Not so long ago I did an emulation
of the MDOS09 under DPS, it can actually be accessed via telnet
and runs about 20 times faster than the emulated original 2 MHz
6809 CPU ran, but does what it was intended to do .

Dimiter

 

[Bjarne Bäckström]

[...]

Then you must remember the D5 kit?... One of my first endeavours was
to make its monitor run on a 6800 board I had built using an [...]
Did you use an Exorciser? Not so long ago I did an emulation
of the MDOS09 under DPS, it can actually be accessed via telnet
and runs about 20 times faster than the emulated original 2 MHz
6809 CPU ran, but does what it was intended to do .

Excuse me for butting in, but I still have an Exorciser II (2 MHz
6800), a D1 Kit, and a D2 Kit, all in working condition.
--

 

[Didi]

Excuse me for butting in, but I still have an Exorciser II (2 MHz

6800), a D1 Kit, and a D2 Kit, all in working condition.

But where do you get your 8" floppies?

Back in the 80-s I had two Bulgarian 8" drives, clones of
something, which did work in a way I had to become an expert
of locating/repairing/replacing bad sectors to rescue an hours
work... The good side was they taught me backup habits .

If I get around to a spare system here or have the one I constantly
use free for a while I'll put that MDOS09 emulation online and post
a note. Oh, the 8" drives (huge 512 kB each, up to 7) are nowadays
DPS files, maintained in CPU memory while emulated .

Dimiter

------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff Transgalactic Instruments

http://www.tgi-sci.com
------------------------------------------------------

[...]

Then you must remember the D5 kit?... One of my first endeavours was
to make its monitor run on a 6800 board I had built using an [...]
Did you use an Exorciser? Not so long ago I did an emulation
of the MDOS09 under DPS, it can actually be accessed via telnet
and runs about 20 times faster than the emulated original 2 MHz
6809 CPU ran, but does what it was intended to do .

Excuse me for butting in, but I still have an Exorciser II (2 MHz
6800), a D1 Kit, and a D2 Kit, all in working condition.
--

 

[Bjarne Bäckström]

But where do you get your 8" floppies?

Oh, I still have about 100 new 8" floppies in sealed boxes, and some
1000+ used ones. Very few of the latter have developed any "bad spots."
Most of them are still as good as new, actually.
[...]

If I get around to a spare system here or have the one I constantly
use free for a while I'll put that MDOS09 emulation online and post
a note. Oh, the 8" drives (huge 512 kB each, up to 7) are nowadays
DPS files, maintained in CPU memory while emulated .

Here <http://flexusergroup.com/swtpc.aspx> is a very good 680x
emulator. It emulates the SWTPc S/09 hardware and is capable of running
the FLEX, UniFLEX and OS-9 operating systems.

Sometimes I also put online one of my "real" S/09 systems with 6809
UniFLEX, for "trusted" users.
--

 

[John Larkin]

Then you must remember the D5 kit?... One of my first endeavours was
to make its monitor run on a 6800 board I had built using an
indicator/keyboard another guy in the neighbourhood had built.
The published sources (Herve Tireford was the author of these
again, IIRC) were something I was learning from back then...
I somehow refuse to believe it has been well > 20 years ago.
Did you use an Exorciser? Not so long ago I did an emulation
of the MDOS09 under DPS, it can actually be accessed via telnet
and runs about 20 times faster than the emulated original 2 MHz
6809 CPU ran, but does what it was intended to do .

I wrote a little monitor/debug program that behaved like DEC's ODT
debug routine, in a box with appropriate hardware. I'd unplug the 6802
CPU and plug this in so I could load code, patch, poke breakpoints,
stuff like that. It could also single-step target code by doing an RTI
into the code and asserting NMI at just the right time, 17 clocks
later or some such.

We used a cross-assembler that ran on a PDP-11, under the RSTS or
RT-11 operating systems. The 6802 assembler was entirely macro
defininitions within Macro-11, the native PDP-11 assembler. It worked
great (Macro-11 was a superb thing, more a language processor than a
simple assembler) although it was rather slow, minutes to assemble
typically.

Now we mostly use 68332's, with the jtag-like BDM pod running into a
laptop pc. An entire application build (preprocess source, assemble,
postprocess listing, build rom image with a couple of FPGA config
files thrown in) takes a couple of seconds.

John