If you want to learn math, physics or chemistry, you go to the respective departments to find the people who are true, verified experts. Same with software and Computer Science. What could be more obvious? The trouble is, it’s wrong. Whatever it is they do, it has little to do with real-world software. Worse, it isn’t even a science.
At the beginning and continuing in many universities, software was part of the math department. What could be stronger endorsement of its precision and status as a science?
https://www.blackliszt.com/2015/04/math-and-computer-science-in-academia.html
The sad fact is, math and computer science are at fundamental odds with effective software development.
https://www.blackliszt.com/2015/05/math-and-computer-science-vs-software-development.html
How does Computer Science stack up against real sciences like physics? Not well.
https://www.blackliszt.com/2019/04/software-is-a-pre-scientific-discipline.html
Real science isn’t about experts or authority; it’s about evidence. Whatever you yammer about in academia, if there aren’t verifiable results in the real world, it’s nonsense. In the medical world, for example, drugs are subjected to a process that verifies that they do what they’re supposed to do.
It took a long time for medicine to pay real attention to evidence. Authority and accepted practice are hard to break. For example, think about the long practice of blood-letting.
https://www.blackliszt.com/2019/02/what-software-experts-think-about-blood-letting.html
The history of scurvy and antiseptic surgery also provide lessons. Even the development of the steam boat!
https://www.blackliszt.com/2014/02/lessons-for-software-from-the-history-of-scurvy.html
In medicine there are studies that are peer-reviewed and published with results. This is called “evidence-based medicine.” You would think there would be the equivalent in software, wouldn’t you?
https://www.blackliszt.com/2017/02/evidence-based-software.html
The vast majority of software experts strongly resemble medical doctors from those earlier times. The evidence is overwhelming that the "cures" they promote make things worse, but since all the software doctors give nearly the same horrible advice, things continue.
In real science, there is general recognition that what is accepted may not be perfect or complete. Sometimes there are anomalies, evidence that doesn’t support the current theory. Then there’s a paradigm shift that revises and/or replaces the accepted theory.
Computer Science is flooded with problems that the experts largely ignore. It’s bad. If bridges fell down at anywhere close to the rate that software systems break and become unavailable, there would be mass revolt. Drivers would demand that bridge engineers make radical changes and improvements in bridge design and building.
One of the interesting things is that Computer Scientists have sometimes acknowledged there are serious problems. For example, there was a big conference to address the “crisis in software” … in 1968!
https://www.blackliszt.com/2021/08/the-crisis-in-software-is-over-50-years-old.html
What did they do? They promoted “structured programming” and decided that the essential “go to” statement was evil.
Aside from a new wave of rhetoric in the software world, nothing of substance changed.
It is enlightening to compare the training to became an MD to the training to be qualified in software. In medicine, your job is to keep people healthy and cure them when they’re not. In software, your job is to build healthy software and cure it when it’s not. The training and testing requirements couldn’t’ be more different. Hint: it’s way better for doctors.
Fashion” is a word we associate with clothes. Software is hard, it’s objective, it’s taught in schools as “computer science.” Software can’t have anything to do with “fashion” if it’s a “science,” can it? Sadly, software is infected by fashion trends and styles at least as much as clothes. Fashion has a huge impact on how software is built.
https://www.blackliszt.com/2018/11/what-are-software-fashions.html https://www.blackliszt.com/2019/05/recurring-software-fashion-nightmares.html
When software history becomes as important a part of computer science education as physics history is of physics, we'll know it's approaching credibility. Until then, everything about computer science, education and practice will continue to be a cruel joke.
https://www.blackliszt.com/2012/03/computer-history.html
https://www.blackliszt.com/2019/06/the-evolution-of-software.html
What can be done? One thing is to understand and accept the goals of software. In physics, the goal is to make accurate predictions of space/time events. What is the equivalent in software? There is actually widespread tacit agreement. It’s just not talked about and contradicted by the reigning dogmas.
https://www.blackliszt.com/2022/05/the-goals-of-software-architecture.html
Until such time as Computer Science becomes scientific, no one who wants to do software should bother with academic degrees, and anyone hiring for software should not require a college degree, much less one in Computer Science. The degree isn't worth as much as you night think.
https://www.blackliszt.com/2015/05/how-much-is-a-computer-science-degree-worth.html
Things will get better only when there is wide acknowledgement of the fact that today's Computer Science is LESS scientific than ... ready for it? ... cat litter.
https://www.blackliszt.com/2023/12/cat-litter-is-more-scientific-than-computer-science.html
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