[SystemSafety] C for OSs

Mon Sep 23 18:09:23 CEST 2019

Chris Hills wrote:

“What has made it far worse is "coding" being pushed as a skill, at least
in the UK.”

Same here in the US, and from my travels I can say it's the same all the
way around the world. For example, this article from just last week:

https://mashable.com/shopping/sept-18-computer-science-master-class/

Quote from the article:

“Learn the ropes of computer science with this master class bundle — just
$39 for full access to tons of courses that'll make you a pro in no time.”

“Not only are jobs aplenty in the computer science field, but they also
come with a pretty paycheck – over $91K a year, on average.”

“. . . this Computer Science Master Class Bundle will give you a complete
computer science education without the massive loans.”

Course content is said to include:

* C#, JavaScript, Java, Scala, Google Go, Python 3, PHP MySQL
* The Arduino IoT cloud platform
* Software testing technologies: Sikuli, Selenium, Junit
* Building apps with Alexa
* Technical fundamentals and interview tips

The Technical Fundamentals course had a hint of promise, but looking at
the course outline shows otherwise:

* Introduction
* Pointer and Arrays
* Strings are just pointers at heart
* Linked lists can be fun!
* Bit Manipulation
* General programming problems - practice makes perfect
* Big-O Notation, Sorting And Searching Algorithms
* Recursion and the recursive sense
* Stacks And Queues
* Binary Trees
* Binary Search Trees
* Binary Tree Problems

Discrete math? No

Set theory? No
Requirements? No
Design? No
Code quality? No
Peer review? No
Development processes? No
Computer architecture? No
Engineering economics? No

The list of critical but missing content goes on and on.

Chris Hills finished with, “It’s depressing.”

Yes. Without a doubt. . .

— steve

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Hills <safetyyork at phaedsys.com>
Organization: Phaedrus Systems
Reply-To: "safetyyork at phaedsys.com" <safetyyork at phaedsys.com>
Date: Saturday, September 21, 2019 at 4:12 AM
To: Steve Tockey <Steve.Tockey at construx.com>, 'Olwen Morgan'
<olwen at phaedsys.com>, "systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de"
<systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
Subject: RE: [SystemSafety] C for OSs

The big problem is people start writing code long before the
specification, let alone the design is finished.
Hence the rise in Agile methods as they give the illusion of progress. Ie
people are writing code so much faster than with waterfall....
Waterfall or V model require a discipline that is also lacking in software
development these days.

What has made it far worse is "coding" being pushed as a skill, at least
in the UK.  
We have gone from Software Engineering to Programming to Coding.
What  is pushed in "coding" is that you start developing an app by coding,
not by doing a detailed (any?) design.
Trial and error is pushed as a solution.

So doing an "app" that is "something like that"  will require fuzzy logic
and imaginary numbers (and I don't mean i notation).  To do any form of
mathematical or formal methods  on most project is a non-starter.  Even
without the reality that maths isn't part of many software degrees so you
probably won't have the skills in any team to do it..

What is worse is much of the IoT and Infotainment is written to low
standards but is being bolted on to critical systems.  As we get an
increasingly connected world containing more and more software the quality
of the software is plummeting.

It’s depressing. 

Regards
   Chris 

Phaedrus Systems Ltd
FREEphone 0808 1800 358    International +44 1827 259 546
Vat GB860621831  Co Reg #04120771
Http://www.phaedsys.com  chills at phaedsys.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: systemsafety [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-
> bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of Steve Tockey
> Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2019 8:29 PM
> To: Olwen Morgan; systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
> Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] C for OSs
> 
> 
> Olwen wrote: ³I remember reading a report of a talk given by Tony Hoare
>in
> which he counselled solving computing problems in mathematics and only
> then translating the mathematics into program code. I thought that was
> such blindingly self-evident good practice that I wondered why he saw fit
> to say it explicitly.²
> 
> I saw a similar quote but haven¹t been able to track down the source:
> 
> ³Š change the nature of programming from a private, puzzle solving
> activity to a public, mathematics based activity of translating
> specifications into programs Š that can be expected to both run and do
>the
> right thing with little or no debugging²
> 
> 
> Sounds like it could be from Tony Hoare.
> 
> Anyway, I am constantly amazed by how many people resist such an
>obviously
> good idea.
> 
> 
> ‹ steve
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Olwen Morgan <olwen at phaedsys.com>
> Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 12:47 PM
> To: Steve Tockey <Steve.Tockey at construx.com>,
> "systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de"
> <systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
> Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] C for OSs
> 
> 
> On 16/09/2019 23:15, Steve Tockey wrote:
> >
> > All true engineers need to have a solid foundation in:
> >
> > *) relevant Scientific & Mathematical Theory
> > *) useful and relevant Practice
> > *) Engineering Economy
> >
> > Take, for example, a Chemical Engineer. The scientific and
> > mathematical theory is Chemistry, Physics, and to some extent Quantum
> > Mechanics. The relevant practice are things like waste heat removal
> > strategies, pressure vessels, catalysts, etc. The theory and practice
> > combine to help the true engineer propose a set of theoretically
> > viable, potential solutions to a real-world problem. Engineering
> > economy comes in to guide the true engineer in identifying the most
> > cost-effective one of those theoretically viable, potential solutions.
> > As a consultant friend of mine once said (slightly paraphrased), ³The
> > Theory and the Practice sets Œem up, Economics knocks Œem down².
> 
> Of course, I go along with this. But I learned to teach myself long
> before there was anything formally titled a body of knowledge. For
> example, I left school knowing how to do critical path analysis, so the
> technical aspects of project management were, for me, a matter of
> applying something that I already understood. It was the same with
> software testing. I taught myself graph theory in my mid-twenties and
> had no problem understanding graph-based test metrics when I later
> encountered them.
> 
> Indeed, in the late seventies, when I was around 25, I remember reading
> a report of a talk given by Tony Hoare in which he counselled solving
> computing problems in mathematics and only then translating the
> mathematics into program code. I thought that was such blindingly
> self-evident good practice that I wondered why he saw fit to say it
> explicitly. And it has often irritated me to find that one needed to do
> an approved course in something to be seen as competent in things that I
> regarded as obvious.
> 
> On the other hand, having had the benefit of a privileged public-school
> education (which was truly exceptional in mathematics), I found myself
> pretty intellectually self-reliant as soon as I started working in the
> computing industry. So, I'll admit it, I have to confess to blank
> incomprehension of people who have never felt themselves to be in that
> position.
> 
> 
> Olwen
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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