From: mbk@lyapunov.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.misc,comp.arch,sci.math
Subject: Re: Scientists as Programmers (was Re: Small Language Wanted)
Date: 1 Sep 1992 19:48:26 GMT
Organization: Institute For Nonlinear Science, UCSD
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sichase@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
: In article <1992Aug31.133811.3626@crd.ge.com>, davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM (william E Davidsen) writes...
: > 
: >  The problem as I see it is that too many scientists and engineers
: >think that because they can write working code they don't need (or are)
: >programmers. Most people can learn to play the paino, but would agree
: >that they are not professional quality, even the "background music in a
: >piano bar" professional quality. Yet they think that programming
: >somehow requires less training, practice, and dare I say it, *talent*
: >than music.
: 
: It all depends on what you need to get done.  We physicists are very bottom-line
: oriented.  I program carefully if I expect that I might need to modify 
: a program somewhere down the line.  But if not, I just slap something together
: that works.  If I need to sort a list, it probably doesn't matter which
: algorithm I use as long as it works.  

Another problem in the scientific world:  we can't always follow what the
software engineering textbooks tell us to do.

Specifically, we don't *know* what the eventual task will be or whether
a programs a 'throwaway' or a 'keeper'.

I write something slap dash and some intriguing results come out, and then
we start to pursue that line further and all of a sudden the little
throwaway code starts mutating into a monster, especially when my boss puts
another student on the project.  And at any time you still don't know whether
"this is the last modification" or whether it will be hanging around for
a long time.

When new results are coming out, its an awfully hard sell to my boss who's a
physicist not a software engineer to say "why don't I spend 2 months
rewriting this from scratch so it will do the same thing as it does now".

: It's rather like cooking.  Most of us are not four-star chefs.  But we 
: all cook when we need to get the job done.  I don't need a programmer most
: of the time - certainly not more often than I need a chef.

I can see circumstances when scientists hire professional programmers.

For large simulations such as a global circulation model or the it-slices-
it-dices radio astronomy packages, and things like that, they usually
hire pros. But still it helps if the programmers know something about
the science, even if they aren't up to the level of creating new science.

: -Scott
: 
: --------------------
: Scott I. Chase			"The question seems to be of such a character
: SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		that if I should come to life after my death
: 				and some mathematician were to tell me that it
: 				had been definitely settled, I think I would
: 				immediately drop dead again."      - Vandiver

--
-Matt Kennel  		mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu
-Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California, San Diego
-*** AD: Archive for nonlinear dynamics papers & programs: FTP to
-***     lyapunov.ucsd.edu, username "anonymous".
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