06 Jun 2009
Software Engineering ≠ Computer Science

Required reading for programmers...

Software engineering has an essential human component. Software maintainability, for example, is the ability of people to understand, find, and repair defects in a software system. The maintainability of software may be influenced by some formal notions of computer science -- perhaps the cyclomatic complexity of the software's control graph. But maintainability crucially involves humans, and their ability to grasp the meaning and intention of source code. The question of whether a particular software system is highly maintainable cannot be answered just by mechanically examining the software.

(link) [Dr. Dobb's Journal]

08:30 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Colo., NY reps want regulation of gas 'fracking'

I had no idea they'd do this to get to more oil or gas ... and while I'm certainly not a geologist, it doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. In fact, it sounds remarkably like the old "the ocean's so big we can't hurt it no matter what we do" argument for offshore dumping.

AP - The push to put a widely used oil and gas drilling process under federal oversight could gain ground with a new administration in place and concerns about the development of huge gas fields in the East.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

08:27 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link