Structured Programming

[Jeffrey Kegler]

(Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E) writes:
>After accepting the job we found to our horror the the code was
>TOTALLY unstructured.

This structured controversy has me strongly agreeing with both sides.  Code
which can only be read by the programmer who wrote it for some weeks after he
wrote it gives all us hackers a bad name (and, unfortunately, we do have a bad
name).  I think the structured versus unstructured controversy contains two
controversies.  The first is a important debate that will help us refine good
programming standards.  The second really is about the question of hacker
"professionalism".

Having once taught Structured Programming for Yourdon,
Inc., I have frequently been asked to assist in advice about "structuring"
code.  This is on the borderline between hacking and management
consulting--basically not a good place to be.  Programming standards and code
review committees attract all the jerks trying to angle their way from the
ranks of us hackers into the Vice-Presidency of the Division.  While these
characters are deceiving themselves into believing they have a career path,
they cause everyone else a good deal of trouble.  (Has a programmer ever
become a VP in a Fortune 500 company?  Not that I know of, and if he did I bet
it was not by being a star on the code review committee).

"Professionalism" in our business is a double-edged term.  When hackers use it
they mean things like writing code according to standards agreed on by those
of our fellows whose competence we respect.   The word is often perverted to
justify whatever rinky-dink rule has emanated from the top.  While wearing
blue jeans at work and never cleaning your coffee cup is not behavior I endorse,
it does not reflect on the "professionalism" of the people doing it.  In fact,
in the area of professionalism, I have taken many a cue from people whose
coffee cups I would only touch with rubber gloves.

Professionalism would mean we hackers set our own standards of ethics and
competence, and membership.  That is what the professions (lawyers, MD's, CPA's)
do.  Professionalism in that sense would get you in big trouble in most
organizations I know of--faster than blue jeans or a dirty coffee cup.

I believe in Structured Programming in the sense that a programmer should
write code to be read by others according to standards accepted by the best of
the programmers.  What goes on in this news group is part of that process (which
process I fear this long posting may be delaying).  But Structured Programming
is often the buzzword for an attempt to routinize and deskill programming work
to reinforce the control of hierarchy over the programming process--separate
from and sometimes different from, improving quality.  In terms of quality,
innovation procedes from the bottom, and, alas, often from desks with dirty
coffee cups.
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, President, Algorists, uunet!jeffrey at algor2.UU.NET
1788 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090, 703-471-1378