"Geeks" and licensing

From: Jim Davis <jpdavis_at_gorge.net>
Date: Sat Dec 15 05:40:18 2001

IMHO: All software development should be performed as such:

1) Requirements - what should it do, and not do. Spin this till
everybody
   signs off.
2) Prelim design - Ok, a rough outline of the design, data structures
   and control/data flow defined here.
3) Detailed design - Define all the modules and their function, break it
down.
4) Test plan - integrate testing into detailed design, make it unit
testable.
   a unit is somthing that has input and output and side effects, like a
function.
5) Finally, coding - build modules in parallel with test code.
6) Unit testing - verify that modules comply with detailed design.
7) Integration testing - hook it all together, make sure it works, apply
   test plan developed in step 4 for fully integrated aplication.

Do 1-3 until marketing decides what they want,4-7 until you find no
errors.

For safety critical, you should /have to perform statement and decision
coverage in
step 6 and 7 and the detailed design should have a one-to-one
corespondence
with the detailed design document.
Jim Davis.

"Eric J. Korpela" wrote:
>
> > > I've also had to work alongside people who managed to scrape their way into
> > > a "programming" job without having "what it takes" to really write code
> > > *and* solve problems. Don't get me wrong -- I have no degree and don't
> > > think one's required to be a competent analyst/programmer/whatever.
> > >
> > > But . . .
> > >
> > > Should programmers be licensed? Sure makes me wonder . . .
> >
> > Ok, what does it take to really write code and solve programs?
> > (Unlicensed programer/coder here ). Writing code is easy... writing the
> > doc's that is another story. I tend to favor the hardware side, but they
> > don't make TTL machines like the PDP-8E or transistor ones like the
> > PDP8/S.
>
> I'm not sure if geeks should be licensed, but there are certainly instances
> when their output should be monitored closely. Geeks who program voting
> machines, for example. (I think that voting machine software should be
> open source and available from the voting machine. Every other civilized
> country gets by with pencil and paper and big bunches of people doing the
> counting. I need to trust that an embedded systems programmer doesn't have
> strong enough political beliefs that they would try to rig an election.
> It gets even worse when you need to believe that people (read Microsoft)
> coding the OS of the damn things don't have any interest in the outcome of
> elections.)
>
> I'd also include Geeks who program any machine that could accidentally
> kill someone (for example airplanes) and Geeks who code for billion
> dollar space hardware.
>
> Eric
Received on Sat Dec 15 2001 - 05:40:18 GMT