APG-L Archives

Archiver > APG > 1999-12 > 0945166087


From: "William B. Dow" <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Opinions?
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 04:08:07 -0600


YEAH! What she said!
<grin>


======================================================
William B. Dow, Principal & CEO, Micro-Comp Consulting
E_mail:
======================================================

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeri J. Steele" <>
To: <>
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 1999 00:16
Subject: Re: [APG] Opinions?


> Wow! I just got back from a business trip to Mexico (my computer job
not
> genealogy) and this list has had some great activity!
>
> 1) Elizabeth, for your 'future' trends:
> I deal with engineering, computer, and manufacturing professionals in
> several other countries. In our 'social' time many personal interests
> surface. Naturally, I have become known as the 'genealogy' person.
In the
> past year, I have had considerable interest in family history from
outside
> the US. I have distributed URLS, suggestions for getting started
books,
> pointers for software, etc. to people in Taiwan, Germany, Mexico, and
> France. The growing interest in family history is not isolated to the
US.
>
> 2) I haven't had time to do much but scan the messages from the past
week.
> However Jan DeLucien's comment "We're talking about taking a folk art
and
> growing it into a science." really hit home for me.
>
> Software engineering had to grow from 'folk art' into an engineering
> discipline and they had to do it in a hurry!
> When we first started there were only a few people that could 'speak'
> computer language much less design a large scale production computer
system.
> As systems became more powerful and less expensive, then more people
were
> trained. But they were not disciplined. We had many programmers who
did an
> excellent job, but there were always exceptions. As software
engineering
> techniques emerged, so did a whole new discipline of software
engineering.
> Computer programmers still work in many states with no licensing.
[This is a
> whole discussion in itself, but basically by the time you could design
and
> standardize a test, the material would be too dated to be of any
> usefulness!] Companies began to impose their own standards for
building
> systems. However, those were still found to be inadequate to keep
software
> from being buggy and poorly documented.
> [Don't get me started on Microsoft for instance, they are an extremely
poor
> example!!!!] Due to the salaries the computer people earn, top
companies and
> univerisities began to develop new levels of standards for self
examination.
> Software quality assurance people are 'independent' to the development
teams
> but are still paid by the company. They assess the processes,
procedures
> and code of the company and have final say over whether on not
software is
> released. The institution that set up these standards is the Software
> Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
>
> IMHO, Genealogy is similiar to software development. For instance,
given the
> same set of requirements, two programmers will produce different code.
> However, the 'behavior' of the program still must 1) satisfy the
> requirements 2) be maintainable (broken into small, cohesive,
understandable
> pieces) 3) be documented fully [so that modifications can be made in
the
> future] and 4) have 'version control' on everything [So that each
'version'
> can be rebuilt at any time].
>
> For genealogists this would be similiar to maintaining a chain of
evidence
> for law enforcement. Every piece of the 'source' code [the source
> documents], the User requirements, Design & Testing [Analysis
documents
> and proofs] must be frozen some where with a time/date stamp. This
allows
> any 'version' of the software [In genealogy the resulting charts &
reports]
> to be examined and rebuilt.
>
> IMHO, Genealogy is beginning to have the kind of standards and
processes
> needed to start some kind of assessment process! [Either self
assessment or
> by a non-profit] Just because Genealogy is not an exact 'science' is
no
> excuse.
>
> Jeri
> ______________________
> Jeri J. Steele, CGRS(sm) Pioneer Information Services
> http://www.PioneerInfo.com
> Want to know about CGRS? http://www.genealogy.org/~bcg/
>
>
>
>
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> The Association of Professional Genealogists
> ************* 1979 to 1999 *****************
> Celebrating 20 years of excellence!
>

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