[SystemSafety] Safety Culture redux (David Green)

[Chris Hills]

OFF TOPIC RANT (not had my coffee yet!)

 

On this very subject… both of them “connotations of words” and “coding”   I was at a presentation on how to Save the World by teaching “coding” to all children because the UK needed “coders”  to create the Brave New World… Apparently being above “to code” was as important as reading and breathing!!!

 

All the way through the Q&A I kept talking about “code-monkeys”  (being deliberately provocative) and the presenter said I was “insulting” by using that label

 

 

I pointed out that teaching someone  “coding”   in the way he was  suggesting did not make them a “programmer” let alone a “Software Engineer”.  Apparently all you need for “programming” is to be able “to code” the rest is just “admin” and “management”   SO you can see that not so much the words but the connotations and concepts are rather powerful if imprecise. We are talking about culture not engineering reports. Try addressing a female colleagues as “luv”  or your director as “mate” and see how powerful words are.

 

Incidentally If the coders wanted to find out about design methods and processes “they could google them” but the presenter had had no idea what they would google (other than “agile”) and he was one of the coding teachers!

 

One day I will prompt Andrew to present the “A model” process for developing code….  (in the next MISRA press release we discussed? ) 

 

I also pointed out that people can use computers without needing to “code” just as much as 98% of car drivers never open the hood let alone service their cars these days.  (and 99% of people make up statistics on the spot) 

 

END RANT. 

 

From: systemsafety [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of Andrew Banks
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2018 5:36 AM
To: 'Todd Carpenter'; systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Safety Culture redux (David Green)

 

Todd wrote:

>> Guess how difficult it is now to bring up Millenials in that same culture?
>> Especially when the majority of "computer scientists" are merely programmers,
>> and don't have either safety or security as part of their required training? 

Please do not get me started on the current vogue of teaching “Coding” in schools… feature drag and drop, with no specification  and no design – where each assignment starts with a blank file L

 

A

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman/private/systemsafety/attachments/20180223/7975d2b0/attachment-0001.html>