Sqeak&TheArtnCraftofTheOffTopicConversation [Re: BabyUML overview posted]

jwalsh at bigpond.net.au jwalsh at bigpond.net.au
Tue Sep 20 22:04:17 UTC 2005


Wow is this OFF TOPIC? 
But before I continue to perfect the topic of the OffTopicConversation, would some kind person send me the beginning ot the original Topic. Or better still Where is the complete Archive?

Owing to an email limit, I delete 90% of my Squeak mail. It is volumous.
It is sad that I must lose so much of this precious, beautiful, but mindless Nature.

Not surprisingly I clicked on this one, half way through the conversation.
Hmm? what has all this got to do with the topic in the Subject line?
Oh well this is probably more interesting anyway

It just happens to be a perfect example of the Creative non Engineering mind.
Engineering as I know it, is the repetitive application of logic from a single founding principle to its final absurd result, and Commonly call a Loop, most applicable to the modern Industrial process. Crafting actually belongs to the Medieval Guild System and the process is called Manufacturing i.e. a go-between. (Medieval ~ mediocre evaluation).

You guessed it I'm a mindless Industrial slave.
Well what has all this got to do with [Re: BabyUML overview posted]?

Nothing really except to point out the huge difficulty adult, mature people, have with Smalltalk in general and Squeak in particular.

Not doubt this too will go OffTopic .

ADHS is a common disease these days.

JW

---- Bob Courchaine <bobc at nfldinet.com> wrote: 
> 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
>



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