Are computer programmers extremely naive ?

Question

(Not individually, but the organization they work in)?

At Cadbury Schweppes, people are paid to notice if there is a malfunction in the automatic canning machine. If the machine malfunctioned, and no-one noticed, tens of thousands of defective packs of cans might be packed.

Computer programmers (and I suppose I mean the admirals and politicians running the organization, because they are the people who are doing the real programming) don't seem to be being paid to notice major malfunctions.

People don't seem to possess the tools they need to help them make usable suggestions for improvement.

Suggestions need to be able to be captured, and then considered for costs and benefits, and the best suggestions, if any, used.

Without proper tools to assess the quality of suggested improvements, the organization is reduced to having to "implement" a few haphazard suggestions in order to show it is "on top of" the current problems.

So an organization, perhaps responsible for safety-critical software, is reduced to implementing suggestions proposed by staff.

[A/Have a look at this code the supplier is planning to use.

B/This angle variable is in the range 0 to 360 degrees. Shouldn't that be 0 to 359.9 ?]

The customer's suggestion to change the code to 359.9 may be poorly thought through. This is an example of a poorly thought-through "improvement".

Answer 1

You are so analytical.

What is really bothering you?

Answer 2

First, most hard-core programmers are NOT naive. (Maybe techies)... but you have to realize there are alot of arrogant ones. The arrogant ones could choose not to look for something that they wouldn't want to fix. this can cause problems. At any functioning business, there are always enough tools to get the job done. The question lies to what extent the workers have been motivated to look for problems to fix.

And although it is true that management will use haphazard suggestions or plans to get something out of the way, I should think this would happen less in a more prominent company. That is, a company built to uphold a certain reputation.

And if a lousy suggestion based on poor or limited knowledge was recieved in a batch of suggestions, it probably would be thrown away. Its as simple as the response to weather you would like your new car (the one with lots of payments to go) blown sky high for a few laughs with the guys, "No."

I will agree that this can happen in less reputable companies, and can happen when dealing with foreign companies. (miscommunications ect...)

Answer 3

No. They are Programmers.

Answer 4

You obviously haven't seen the pages of error debugging a computer programmer has to do , before a program can be passed by the compiler !

Answer 5

wth...don't judge people

Answer 6

Its not only the programmers who are at fault its also the system that drives the management. In most kinds of organized industry the need to do the politically correct thing vastly overcomes the need to make and apply the theoretically correct decision.

Often this latter thing requires one to make an improvement on the present programme or process for which there is in managerial terms no time nor budget available. So the fault remains, often causing a great deal more expense after due credit has been given for the present results. There is no investigation about it, the need to correct it and proceed to produce output is too strong. We are not driven by the need to do accurate work but instead the cheep and timely result is the aim. When will they ever learn?

Answer 7

Are you assuming that we should understand what you're talking about?  Your "question" rambles on and on about some situation that you apparently don't agree with, but you give few hard facts.  It's hard to tell if the situation occurred at Cadbury Schweppes, for example, or how computer programmers are involved, or what tools you think you need.  

If you have a suggestion box, maybe you can put your suggestion in that instead.  You'll need to be a little more cogent in that one, though.