On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 10:43 PM, Hans Georg Schaathun <h...@schaathun.net> wrote: > On Thu, 12 May 2011 22:16:10 +1000, Chris Angelico > <ros...@gmail.com> wrote: > : Anyone can join. Not everyone wants to join. Me, I'm happy here as a > : priest of the software industry, and I have no desire to become a > : priest of, say, automotive engineering or concrete pouring. Would an > : expert concreter be expected to explain to me exactly how to make > : different sorts of concrete, or would he be expected simply to fulfill > : his contract and provide me with my structure? > > Of course he would. When a piece of software to calculate the > properties or recipes for different kinds of concrete is needed.
Writing a program requires expertise both in programming and in the purpose for which it's being written. Ultimately, a programmer is a translator; without proper comprehension of the material he's translating, he can't make a clear translation. But that's completely different from hiring someone to do a job, and then looking at the job afterwards; if I order a concreting job, I'll look at whether it's properly suited to the task, but I won't expect an explanation of exactly what went into it, and I do not expect to understand the exact chemistry of it. Only another expert in concrete would truly comprehend it all. Chris Angelico -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
