Re: PG: Hackers and Painters

[Matt Curtin <address@hidden>]

On 19 May 2003, Scott McKay presumably wrote:

> In my opinion, one of the great failures of the current
> practice of software is its failure to retain this model.

I wholeheartedly agree.  I've long thought about this model and how it
would make sense in software.

My father is a master carpenter, and approaches his projects with the
same kind of intensity that readers here understand.  He went to
school to study carpentry, then completed an apprenticeship (two
years, I believe), and THEN got the journeyman certificate.  After
reaching journeyman stage, he started doing the work day-to-day
without supervision.  I think this is interesting because looking at
the things that he built before becoming a journeyman shows clearly
that he is unusually talented.

Some really bad trends have been taking place in building over the
past thirty years, far away from the historical model that has worked
so well, much closer to something that the majority of the software
industry uses.  People with very little training or understanding
about what they're doing are now part of the crews that put up entire
subdivisions in almost no time ... a look at how well the houses built
now stand up by comparison to the buildings built using the labor of
journeyman builders is instructive.

The (A?) problem seems to be that the economics suggest that quality
building by persons trained well in the profession just isn't a cost
that people will bear.  They would rather pay $20 up front and another
$80 over the course of a year in maintenance than $40 all at once, up
front.

-- 
Matt Curtin, CISSP, IAM, INTP.  Keywords: Lisp, Unix, Internet, INFOSEC.
Founder, Interhack Corporation +1 614 545 HACK http://web.interhack.com/
Author of /Developing Trust: Online Privacy and Security/ (Apress, 2001)