HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ssimmons@convex.com (Steve Simmons)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: >>>>>>> Most Widely Used Language?
Date: 21 Aug 92 13:18:37 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

> A co-worker of mine made an interesting statement. He said that Cobol is the 
> most widely used language today. I said that it was probably due to vast 
> number of older systems in existance (i.e. many developers are using it for
> maintenance). His response was that he thought it was the most widely used
> language for new developement as well. 
>
> I find this pretty hard to believe. Does anyone have stats on the current
> usage of languages?

COBOL and FORTRAN are still the most dominant languages today in terms 
of code that has been written (and running).  However, I think that 
C is now the dominant language for new code underdevelopment.  Both 
COBOL and FORTRAN are the languages on the old mainframes and mini-computers. 
C is really dominant in both the Unix and PC worlds.  Whatever?!?!?

Most application software is not very complex in terms of system programming.
Therefore, both FORTRAN and COBOL fit this paradigm nicely.  However, both 
FORTRAN and COBOL programmers should be nervous because many of these
jobs are being exported to countries like India and South Korea. 

Only a few years ago, there were these Data Processing Institutes that would
churn out COBOL programmers.  These programmers did not necessarily have
either college, engineering, or mathematic backgrounds.  As a summer job
8 years ago, I worked for a company that did product development on mainframes.
Most of my fellow employees were trained at these places.  They were 
good at what they did.

Thank you. 

					Steve Simmons
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
From: schmid@ide.com (Stephen Schmid)
Subject: Re: What is Software Engineering? A sample definition
Organization: Interactive Development Environments, SF
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 23:33:09 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.230754.27114@softway.sw.oz.au> peterc@suite.sw.oz.au.sw.oz.au (Peter Chubb,x114,6982322,3982735) writes:

>In my opionion (for what it's worth) a software engineer is someone
>who works at more than one level: not only does such a person
>design/implement/manage/maintain/etc software, s/he studies the
>*process* by which software is produced, implemented, maintained,
>etc., with the aim of improving it next time around.  Thus a software
>engineer is a meta-designer of software: the person who designs the
>methodologies for the programmers to follow.
>


I like that definition very much.  Along those lines, perhaps a better
term for what many of us do most of the time would be "software developer".

I was never comfortable with the term "computer programmer", because there
is much more to software development than just programming.  Likewise,
"software designer" is too restrictive. And "software engineer" is often 
too broad.  "Developer" seems about right.
From: d3g349@gilligan.pnl.gov (PR Berard)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Most Widely Used Language?
Date: 20 Aug 92 22:32:03 GMT
Reply-To: d3g349@gilligan.pnl.gov
Organization: Sun Microsystems

A co-worker of mine made an interesting statement. He said that Cobol is the 
most widely used language today. I said that it was probably due to vast 
number of older systems in existance (i.e. many developers are using it for
maintenance). His response was that he thought it was the most widely used
language for new developement as well. 

I find this pretty hard to believe. Does anyone have stats on the current
usage of languages?

Thanks,

Peter Berard
Battelle, Pacific Northwest Lab.
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
From: sss@netcom.com (Small Systems Solutions)
Subject: Re: What is Software Engineering
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 16:35:31 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Aug11.205559.14680@ide.com> 
	 schmid@ide.com (Stephen Schmid) writes:

>The analogy I like best is:
>
>As a carpenter is to an architect,
>so is a programmer to a software engineer.

Perhaps a carpenter is to an architectural engineer as a programmer
is to a software engineer.

Of course, to stretch the analogy, a software project is like a building
project without an architect, a good set of blueprints, or an agreed-upon
method for erecting the house.  The subsystems will function great by
themselves, but for some reason the lights flicker when the toilets are
flushed...
-- 
Small Systems Solutions                   1563 Solano Avenue, Suite 123
sss@netcom.com                                  Berkeley, CA 94707-2116

The above-expressed opinions aren't necessarily
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
From: travis@eecs.nwu.edu (Travis Marlatte)
Subject: Re: What is Software Engineering
Organization: Rauland-Borg Corporation, Skokie IL
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 20:07:12 GMT

What's the point of this discussion? Are we really trying to nail down
the definition of "software engineering" or just get a better feel
for what it is we are supposed to be doing?

It seems that if someone were able to prove that a software engineer
is a person who spent 15% of his day on the beach, everyone in this
discusion with "Software Engineer" on their business card would get
their bathing suit out.

I think that part of the problem is that the duties assigned to a 
software person tend to cover the entire life-cycle so it is hard to
create a more specific title.

Let's get back to discussing how we get the job down, not what we call
it.

Travis,
Software Engineer, Reuse Specialist, Project Coordinator, Product Planner,
Scheduler, Resource Manager, Staff Phsycologist, Writer, System Designer,
Software Designer, Documentation Specialist, Programmer, System Tester,
User Alpha, Software Maintenance Administrator, Field Consultant,
Trouble Shooter, Friend

-- 
Travis
From: lkirby@axion.bt.co.uk (Lewis Kirby)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: What is Software Engineering
Date: 12 Aug 92 11:29:33 GMT
Reply-To: lkirby@axion.bt.co.uk (Lewis Kirby)
Organization: British Telecom Research Labs


In article <1992Aug10.035604.19618@bony1.bony.com>, richieb@bony1.bony.com (Richard Bielak) writes:
...
|> As for the term "software engineer", it always reminds me of the
|> phrase "sanitation engineer".  Are we not secure enough to be called
|> "programmers" ?

Not quite in the thread, but very often I hear people using terms like "platform",
"machine", "workstation", and so on, but they seem very reluctant to use "computer".

Lewis G Kirby   Telephone +44 473 645807
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Hindsight is the only exact science
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sig pretentious quote number 167
From: munck@stars.reston.unisys.com (Robert G. Munck)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Do you use SADT ?
Keywords: SADT
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:56:39 GMT
Reply-To: munck@stars.reston.unisys.com
Organization: DARPA STARS/NATO PCIS

In article <1992Aug12.082545.1015@cbfsb.cb.att.com>, djones@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (david.jones) writes:
> In a world of OO design methods and well used
> 'tradtional' methods (like Yourdon et al) I was
> wondering if anybody still used SADT for medium
> to large scale projects (say over 200K SLOC)


SADT, under its AF name IDEF-0, is a major part of the DoD CIM
Initiative, a program that intends to replace ALL DoD MIS software.
This is not a small amount of code; we're talking hundreds of
millions of SLOC.  SADT is being used to do "enterprise modeling;"
capturing in an understandable way the complete activities of all
DoD organizations that use data processing so that they can be
provided with standardized-across-DoD DP systems.

SADT is also finding extensive use in life-cycle process modeling.
The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has promulgated a rating
system that supposedly determines how well an organization develops
software; in fact, it measures how well-defined their development
process is and how well they follow it.  SADT has been found to be
far and away the best way to express complex human processes like
software development.

The technology of software reuse has seized on the idea that it is
necessary to define "domains" of applications programs, such as
"payroll," "weapons control," and "acoustical signal processing."
The very best way known to define a domain is by creating an SADT
model in consultation with experts in the field.  That domain
model can then be used to develop generic, highly-reusable
software.  The Toshiba Software Factory, which follows this
approach, has over a thousand trained SADT users.

Note that all of these areas are pretty far away from code
development; they involve SADT models of human activity and
complex systems architectures.  SADT is NOT a competitor of "OO
design methods and well used 'tradtional' methods (like Yourdon et
al);" it is used at a much earlier and higher level in system
analysis.  (Although, the "mechanism model" features of SADT,
developed in 1975, can be shown to be a generalization of O-O
Design.)

The IDEF User's Group, concerned mainly with IDEF-0/SADT, has
twice-a-year national meetings with several hundred attendees.

Whew.  Thanks for asking.

-- 
Bob Munck, Deputy Architect STARS
           US Expert PCIS Team
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
From: musa@cmptrc.lonestar.org (Jeff Musa)
Subject: Re: What is Software Engineering
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 14:22:12 GMT
Organization: CompuTrac Inc., Richardson TX

In article <1992Aug12.065800.14202@sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au> ghm@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Geoff Miller) writes:
>
>I don't dispute the figures as such, but I wonder if there's some double
>counting going on.  We're looking at a project at the moment for which
>we estimate the development time of a working core system to be 6 months,
>with at least a further 12 months for refinement and further development.
>Now, is that "maintenance"?  By some definitions it is (since it involves
>fixing problems with existing code), so if you analyse our time on that
>basis it will look as though we're spending a lot of time on maintenance.
>However, is that a problem?  I don't think so, because I don't see 
>maintenance and development as necessarily distinct.  In fact, most of
>our software "maintenance" involves additional functionality or altered
>functionality in response to changing user requirements.
>
Maintenace and development are very distinct.  Maintenance is the effort 
spent enhancing a product to meet the needs of customers and fixing bugs in
an already released product.  These included data corruption, run-time errors
implementing new controls, etc...  Development (the development that the     
figures are based on) is the act of creating a new product to then be put
into the maintenance phase.  Classic software engineering stipulates a life
cycle of software that reflects a development phase, maintenance, and
demise. 

Those that create hack programs, force maintenance programmers
to write hack fixes and these (one on top of another) cause more time to 
be spent figuring out and rewritting code just to fix or enhance.  An  
engineered approach is more likely to be delivered on time, meet the 
customers needs, be more easily maintainable/enhanceable, and very probably
more robust due to the extensive write-ups and prototyping required before
starting a truly engineered software project.

One possible difference in semantics should be pointed out, if you are 
developing shrink wrapped software versus software systems, "development"
probably would encompass enhancements to this existing product.
    
---
Jeff Musa  (musa@cmptrc.lonestar.org)        | "These opinions are my own
CompuTrac Inc.       (214) 235 - 7161 #3810  |  and do not necessarily         
222 Municiple Drive                          |  reflect those of my employer"
Richardson, TX  75080
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
From: sanjiv@projtech.com (Sanjiv Gossain)
Subject: Looking for ICSE announcement
Organization: Project Technology, Inc., Berkeley, CA
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 22:35:18 GMT

Can anyone supply me with the contact for obtaining information
about the next IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering.

Many thanks

	-Sanjiv
-- 
-------------------------------------
Dr. Sanjiv Gossain, 	sgossain@projtech.com  
Project Technology	Training and Consulting using Shlaer-Mellor OOA/RD
Berkeley, CA		Tel: (510) 845 1484
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
From: dburton@sei.cmu.edu (Daniel Burton)
Subject: STARS '92 Conference, 8-10 Dec 92
Organization: The Software Engineering Institute
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 14:17:51 GMT



	SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY FOR ADAPTABLE, RELIABLE SYSTEMS (STARS)


Our annual conference, STARS '92, will be held 8-10 December at the Omni 
Shoreham in Washington, D.C. Format will be similar to last year, except
an additional day has been added in order to support more and technical
presentations and discussions. This year we'll be focusing on:
	* Technology Advances
	* Tool Integration
	* Maturing Tools Oriented Toward Megaprogramming
	* Planning for the STARS Demonstration Projects
	* Technology Transition and user Activities
	* Commercialization Activities
	* Insight into other DARPA SW Technology Efforts such at DSSA
	   and Prototech

As last year, demonstrations of tools and capabilities from STARS primes,
commercial counterparts and related vendors will play a major role.

The next issue of the STARS Newsletter will contain an advance registration
form and additional information. You may also obtain additional information
by faxing your request to the STARS Technology Center, Fax: (410) 267-0332,

or write: The STARS '92 Conference Center
          3 Church Circle - Suite 194
	  Annapolis, MD 21401

or E-Mail: STARS92-Desk@STARS.Rosslyn.Unisys.Com
From: chrisp@regenmeister.Sun.COM (Chris Prael)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Terms [Was: What is Software Engineering]
Date: 14 Aug 1992 16:38:13 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: regenmeister

From article <1992Aug13.165235.25343@exu.ericsson.se>, by exujsch@exu.ericsson.se (Johnny Schmittou EXUTEEG x7887 Dallas Texas USA):
> 
> I always liked the term "computer scientist" over the term "software
> engineer".  If people get computer science degrees (what I received),
> why not call those people computer scientists?  Perhaps when colleges
> have software engineering degrees (and probably some colleges already
> have this) a person who earns this degree may be rightfully called
> a software engineer.

I went through college before there were "computer science" degrees.
The only fields that felt they needed to tell the rest of the world that
tey had scientific pretensions were "political science", "social
science", and "military science" (better known as ROTC).
 
The next thing that I have observed is that poeple who prefer to be
called "computer scientist" tend (though not invariably) to perform more
like technicians than like engineers or scientists.  The real problem
here is in the experience they have (or have not) gained in college.
Perhaps there is too much memorization of minor techniques and not
enough learning of principles.

In the rest of the technical world, scientists try to figure out why the
latest thing the engineers built works, engineers build products, and
technicians handle the scut work.

The label programmer covers all three quite well.

Just another two cents

Chris Prael
From: dheron@csaadel.adl.csa.oz (David Heron)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Info. Request:  Human Error Rates
Date: 12 Aug 92 06:25:04 GMT
Reply-To: dheron@csaadel.adl.csa.oz.au (David Heron)
Organization: Computer Sciences of Australia Pty Ltd, Adelaide

We need information about:

	How often do operators make errors when using computer terminals?

We are interested in operators who are:
	* despatchers in a transport network control centre and
	* vehicle crews using on-board terminals,
and in error rates in both normal and abnormal circumstances. 

A search in DIALOG produced these articles: 
	* "Human Error Data Collection and Analysis", A Ridsdale et al,
	  Proc. of Reliability '89, June 1989.
	* "Computer Simulation in Human Reliability Analysis", P M Lewis,
	  Trans. of the American Nuclear Soc., vol 62 p 137, 1990.
	* "Assessment of Human Performance Safety for Supporting Task 
	  Allocation Decisions", G Heslinga & N V Kema, Proc. of Intl.
	  Symposium on Balancing Automation and Human Action in Nuclear 
	  Power Plants, Munich, July 1990.
	  
Please e-mail other references or info. to me;  I will post a summary.

Thanks in advance.
--
Dave Heron
dheron@csaadel.adl.csa.oz.au
From: neil@cadreor.cadre.com (Neil W. Van Dyke)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CADRE TEAMwork
Date: 16 Aug 92 00:48:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: cadreor.1992Aug16.004841.11433
Organization: Cadre Technologies Inc., Portland Operation

[Obligatory Bias Warning: I am employed by Cadre Technologies as a system
administrator, so the personal opinions expressed here are probably biased.]

uyeno@meetng.enet.dec.com (Alice Uyeno) writes:
>I have used Cadre Teamwork on a VMS platform.  I guess it is one of the better
>CASE tools around; I have used a few.

>I also heard from my system administrator that installations were a pain.

I'm a sys-admin at this division, so I get lots of opportunities to install
Teamwork on many of the platforms that it is supported on (Apollo, HP
9000/300,400, HP 9000/700, IBM RS/6000, OS/2, RISC Ultrix, Sun-4, VAX/VMS, and
more I can't recall at the moment).

I agree that installation on VMS is a pain.  The trouble is caused by the
complexity of VMS, with all the VMS system parameters and user quotas that need
to be adjusted every time a new software package is installed.  I've had equal
trouble installing several DEC products (CDD/Plus, VWS, and others), all of
which are good systems.  VMS is a minicomputer operating system, so you have
a lot of control, at the price of complexity for the sys-admin.

Installing Teamwork on any of the Unix-like platforms is a breeze, since Unix
has no standard quotas mechanism, and there is no need to tune the system.
Installing Teamwork on OS/2 is almost as simple, except I have to physically-
exert myself in order to swap the floppies, as opposed to just popping-in a
tape. :-)

One of my users did encounter trouble running on VMS, because the VMS user
quotas I had set up were insufficient.  The (obvious) fix was to increase the
quotas.

Anyway, if you want to get more info. on Teamwork, the best way is straight
from the horse's mouth (so to speak).  The main number for Cadre's US corporate
headquarters is:

	+1 401 351 5950

I think they can direct you to the right person to talk to.  If not, give me a
ring and I'll ask around here for who would be the best person to answer your
questions.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled "comp.software-eng" discussions.

-- 
Neil W. Van Dyke <> neil@cadre.com <> +1 503 690 1586 <> Fax: +1 503 690 1320
"My employer disclaims that I even work for them, much less speak for them."
From: kambic@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Bonus, Iniquus, Celer - Delegitus Duo)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Boehm reference- here it is
Date: 17 Aug 92 08:23:53 EST

In article <1992Aug14.163506.8709@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com>, kambic@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Bonus, Iniquus, Celer - Delegitus Duo) writes:
> I have a preprint of Boehm's paper, A Spiral Model of Sofware Development and
> Enhancement.  I believe the publication date is IEEE Computer Magazine,
> sometime in 1988.  Does anyone have a better reference?

A group thank you to all of those who provided the reference.

Barry Boehm, A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement, IEEE
Computer, Vol 21, No. 8, pp 61-72, May, 1988
 
George Kambic
kambic@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com
From: rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Groff bug?
Date: 21 Aug 92 19:09:45 GMT
Organization: insert anything here


	Has anyone else had problems with using an internal
eqn construction with .IP in groff(V1.05)?

	In other words, I can't seem to do this:

.EQ
delim $$
.EN
[.... some groff stuff]
.IP $lambda$
[... more groff stuff]

I get error reports that look like:
sect4:51: warning: missing `)' (got `'')
sect4:51: warning: missing number
sect4:51: warning: numeric expression expected (got `\{')
sect4:51: warning: missing closing delimiter
sect4:51: warning: missing number
sect4:51: warning: `par*label' not defined
sect4:51: cannot chop empty macro
sect4:65: warning: indent cannot be negative

and of course no output.

	Since this is more or less "simple" stuff, I'm surprised
that groff chokes so easily.

Bob D.
Newsgroups: comp.text
From: rwh@moose.cccs.umn.edu (RICHARD HOFFBECK)
Subject: Re: WordPerfect File Format?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Reply-To: rwh@moose.cccs.umn.edu
Organization: Colon Cancer Control Study, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 15:13:00 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.133911.6565@sinix.UUCP>, dhg@sinix.UUCP (David Griffith) writes:
>  
> Hi. Could somebody please email me a description of the format of WP
> files, or an FTP site where I could find one?

I've seen doc files for the 4.x file structure but the only thing I've seen
for 5.x files is the programmers toolkit that WP Corp sells for $75 (?). The
kit is suppose to come with a detailed description of the format and some
sample code segments.  I decided not to encourage WPC so I spent the $75
elsewhere and moved the application out of WordPerfect.

--rick

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Richard Hoffbeck               INTERNET: rwh@moose.cccs.umn.edu |
| Colon Cancer Control Study     ATT     : (612) 627-4151         |
| University of Minnesota        CIS     : 72406,521              |
| Minneapolis, MN 55455                                           |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: ps -> dvi  or  ps -> *roff
From: phys169@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
Date: 19 Aug 92 16:49:35 +1200
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

In article <1992Aug13.174859.5644@dcc.uchile.cl>, erodrigu@dcc.uchile.cl (Eduardo Rodriguez) writes:
> 
> Does anyone know of a filter that give me a dvi file
> from a postscript one?, or *roff from postscript?
>   I am NOT looking for a dvi2ps but ps2dvi.
> 
It is possible to include (encapsulated) postscript in a tex document as
"special" provided you have a good modern dvips (e.g. Radical Eye, I think),
i.e. it passes the postscript onto the printer with little modification. 

But if you want to send it to a non-PostScript printer then you've got
problems. The program would have to be a big and complicated as GhostScript to
handle PostScript in general.  Maybe if you know the ps file will only use a
subset of PostScript you might be able to do something, but I don't know of any
such program... I am interested in something like that, though.  If you'd like
to tell me what sort of PS files you need to be able to process, I might be
able to write something.

Mark Aitchison, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
Newsgroups: comp.text