On 7/16/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Malcolm Wallace</b> &lt;<a href="mailto:Malcolm.Wallace@cs.york.ac.uk">Malcolm.Wallace@cs.york.ac.uk</a>&gt; wrote:<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
After all, we would expect the same attributes (intelligence and<br>training) from a neurosurgeon, a nuclear scientist, or someone who<br>calculates how to land a person on the moon.&nbsp;&nbsp;Programming computers may<br>not seem very skilled to most people, but maybe that is simply because
<br>we are so familiar with it being done so badly.&nbsp;&nbsp;I&#39;m all for improving<br>the quality of software, and the corollary is that that means improving<br>the quality of programmers (by stretching our brains!).<br></blockquote>
</div><br>You want people doing difficult expensive high-risk tasks to be intelligent and well trained, but you want their task to be as easy as possible.<br><br>Would you rather a nuclear reactor needs to be controlled by feeding in punch cards, or by having a big round dial labelled &quot;power&quot;, that you can move from 0 to 200 MegaWatts?&nbsp; Of course, you&#39;d like the guy moving that dial to be well trained and intelligent.&nbsp; Welcome to why flying airlines is well-paid and boring.
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