Goto (still) considered harmful

Buzz Groups/Fish ball 15 + 60 minutes

What you say is what you get

Martine Devos

James O. Coplien

Alan O'Callaghan

During our (short) history as a software profession, we made some statements that last, that survive. "Goto considered harmful" is one of them. But do we always get the reactions, the results we expect? When an OO-guru says "Components are not objects" these four words are used to communicate a lot of meaning. Academics (and guru's) are experts at communicating wisdom a few words, and often assume that a lot of foreknowledge among their audience. But that audience is not limited to computer scientists. Our managers don't always have that knowledge, neither do some (Java in 24 hours-). They may go for easy money, follow the hype, or often just literally do "what we told them to do".

What do we create with our statements?

Can we avoid it?


Members of the first bowl:

Alan O'Callaghan
Jane Chandler
James Coplien
Kevlin Henney
and you?
 
 

Martine Devos (martine.devos@eds.com)

EDS Martine Devos is reuse and method consultant for EDS. She was director of the IS-department at the Belgian department of education (Argo) since 1992 and before has worked as teacher, as technical consultant and project leader to the Belgian Minister of Education and the Civil Service. As IS manager she introduced objects and she initiated, and co-ordinated the development of a framework and several applications using it. Her main focus is on the use of IS - and "softer software" - to support change programs and learning. Special interests are framework development, the use of patterns in organisation, the human side of IS and facilitating workshops. She participated in, and organised, several workshops and panels on System Envisioning, the use of creativity in requirements developing. She is program-chair of EuroPlop 2000.

James O. Coplien (cope@research.bell-labs.com)

Bell Laboratories Jim Coplien is an author, a lecturer and a researcher at Bell Laboratories. His main research interests are ethnographic studies of professional organisations, software architecture, and software patterns. His architecture work includes multi-paradigm design and telecommunication architecture patterns, as well as studies like "Architecture as metaphor" at last year's OT. He enjoys travel, scuba, and collecting Turkish carpets.

Alan O'Callaghan (aoc@dmu.ac.uk)

De Montfort University Alan O'Callaghan has been a Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University in the UK for ten years, having previously worked for the London Transport Executive, British Oxygen and Kodak. He has been working with object technology since 1991, and is well-known in the UK for his work on the migration of legacy systems to object technology, having pioneered developments in industrial projects in telecoms, the defence industry and the machine-tools industry. He has edited two books on object technology transfer, and is a regular columnist in the European SIGS journal, Application Development Advisor. He has presented talks, tutorials and workshops at Object Expo in London, OOP in Munich, Object World UK, Object Technology 9X and the OOPSLA Educators' Symposium as well as a number of industrial seminars and conferences. 

Topics

Benefits

  • Participants learn how some statements have different meaning, even for "fish".
  • We search for statements that are potentially dangerous.
  • We work on ways to avoid misunderstanding.
    • Session: Buzz Groups/Fish ball 15 + 60 minutes Level: not important
    Audience: Developers, managers, users, linguists Participants may bring another harmless statement into the bowl  Max not important

    Material

    Cards with statements

    Colour code for partitioning of participants in buzz-groups

    Delivery

    Format

  • Intro + partitioning in groups 5 minutes
  • Buzz-groups - three statements each 10 minutes
  • Round - 10 minutes - silence
  • Fishbowl - 3 participants and moderator (no chair) - 4 chairs
  • First statement (abstraction, Coplien) 10 minutes
  • More statements and changing participants


    • Topics could be:

  • XP (how many of the principles do we need to use to be call ourselves XP-er)
  • Information hiding
  • Non-functional requirements


    • Statements (from guru's, some "old" statements) will be revealed on large posters

    Final question - "what can we do about it" - with original fish

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