The World and the Machine

摘要

As software developers we are engineers because we make useful machines. We are concerned both with the world, in which the machine serves a useful purpose, and with the machine itself. The competing demands and attractions of these two concerns must be appropriately balanced. Failure to balance them harms our work. Certainly it must take some of the blame for the gulf between researchers and practitioners in software development. To achieve proper balance we must sometimes fight against tendencies and inclinations that are deeply ingrained in our customary practices and attitudes in software development. In this paper some aspects of the relationship between the world and the machine are explored; some sources of distortion are identified; and some suggestions are put forward for maintaining a proper balance.