John F. Sowa wrote: (01)
> There are numerous horror stories floating around about
> pointy-haired bosses who bought the XML hype and converted
> working relational DBs to XML. (02)
I don't doubt. My only point was that XML has not yet found its proper
place (overall) in our system of "computer science" education. And the
XML hype has obscured viable active technologies that XML has not
displaced. This is so because the stable technologies are not going to
be grounds for new research, except in very unusual areas and ways. It
is much easier to think of the "new" technology as offering lots of new
opportunities for research, even though most of that "research" is based
on illiteracy, and the absence of established discipline. (03)
XML has found its place in being a basis for exchange standards for
people who had a need and had no clue where to start. But that part is
not exciting to students, because the real standards work is in getting
agreement on the content, not the form, and not on new tools for doing
old things with the new notation. (04)
> PS: The old "computer science" students actually learned
> something. The new "IT" students learn how to drag, drop,
> and click, but know little or nothing about what goes on
> under the covers. (05)
I don't think that is fair. When I was a student around 1970, the
"lore" that was computer science was not written down. So yes we
learned the lore of all kinds -- some truth, some half-truth, some
nonsense, some relevant to software engineering, some not -- and the
tried and true and useful lore gradually got written down. (06)
It is not that many of these kids need to learn the useless knowledge
that will let them build their own JVM for the Intel Hexium17. It is
that they will have to relearn the knowledge that was captured in
"information modeling" and "structured programming" and "distributed
systems" and "object-oriented" design, largely by the seat of their
pants, because the literature of 1975-2000 doesn't use the vocabulary of
XML and "service-orientation". So "computer science" will be stuck
repeating the lessons of 1980-1990, while physics and engineering goes
on to build nano-machines. (07)
Admittedly, this is the depressed view of the curmudgeon, but I have
seen this phenomenon recur every 5 to 10 years for 35 years, and I still
don't see the academic or industry forces marshalling to break the
cycle. (A British colleague did say that he thinks PDF might be a key
element in the solution.) (08)
-Ed (09)
P.S. My first encounter with widespread ignorance of the state of the
practice was in 1974, when a senior engineer was teaching a group of
engineers how to program an early microcomputer. The highlight was the
wonderful invention of an instruction that made code sections reusable
called "return jump". It enabled *the subroutine*. I was very happy to
see that microcomputer engineers in 1974 had caught up to 1956 software
concepts. Based on the minicomputer experience, this probably meant they
would catch up to 1966 by 1978, and to 1976 by 1981. And sure enough,
that was almost exactly the timetable. ;-) (010)
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 (011)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (012)
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