Trygve Reenskaug wrote:

> Since I started my career as a chartered electical engineer, I am
> curious to know  what you see as the difference between craftspeople
> and engineers? :-)

I come from a craft tradition, Trygve. I first worked in the building
trades and in the theatre building scenery.

The software writing activities I do now reflect that. I approach my
work as an integral part of myself, not as a mechanical activity defined
by facts that can be done by anyone else w/ the appropriate
certification (licensing).

Pete McBreen wrote, in my opinion, a really good book that explores the
difference.

In "Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative" (ISBN: 0-201-73386-2),
he makes these distinctions:

"The biggest problem with software engineering is the assumption that a
systematic, disciplined, and quantifiable approach is the only possible
approach."

...

"This mechanical view omits the fact that better developers make far
fewer mistakes and are much better at finding defects. Software
engineering makes us forget that what really matters on a project is the
skill, knowledge, and experience of the individual software developers."

That's not to say that rigor, discipline, etc can't and shouldn't be
applied to certain parts of the process. And certainly a team charged w/
a project like writing software to control the Space Shuttle had better
approach it as an engineering activity!

But McBreen positions the distinction like this:

"I see software development as a creative blend of art, science, and
engineering, whose purpose is to deliver effective systems. The best way
I have been able to describe this idea is by talking about software
craftsmanship. The software craftsmanship metaphor allows developers to
acknowledge all aspects of their craft—the artistic and aesthetic
aspects as well as the measurable and mechanical aspects."

>From what I see, the process at work here on Squeak is every bit a
collective effort of master craftspeople!

Bob