Programmers and librarians

[Joe Schallan]

No, writing web pages is _not_ programming. But having "viewed
source" on many hundreds of pages, I would make a plea
for page makers to employ some of programming's elements
of good coding style!  Makes it so much harder to filch someone's
work when the markup and text appear as one huge undifferentiated
mass . . .

My only point was that programs, like web pages, need constant
updating.  As I am not a programmer, I have no idea whether
computer science has evolved ways to make such updating--
including adjustments to a program's "look and feel"--as easy as
possible.  Back when I was associated with computer scientists,
I recall "structured programming" (courtesy Dr. Dijkstra, I believe)
and modularity being all the rage.  Has this translated into more
easily maintainable and flexible software?

The rapid prototyping system sounds quite interesting.  I recall
that some years ago Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston (inventors
of the electronic spreadsheet) had a neat little demo program.
You could prototype screens to try out on users, without having
to create underlying code.  What became of this product?  I saw
it at Comdex, maybe about 1987.

I regret not sounding more sympathetic to Mr. Dorman's concerns.
He's dealing with a profession heavily populated with folks
who are either outright technophobes or are clueless about
system design.  Combine this with the typical American approach
--"there's no time now to do it right, but plenty of time to fix it
after release"--and, well, it's got to be frustrating.  The poster
from UCLA has encouraged me to think at least one school is
on the right track, though.  We need more library schools that
will foster technical literacy and systems thinking, IMO.  And
requiring higher scores on the quantitative side of the GRE
won't do any harm, either.

And no, Ms. Schneider, I'm not trying to turn this thread into
"math vs. humanities."  But I may as well state my biases, if
they are not already abundantly clear.  We _do_ have too
many humanities majors in the profession, and the result
is too much fear of technology and, to borrow Dr. Paulos's
term, innumeracy.  I see it in my colleagues in Arizona.  (This
is not to be construed as an attack on an individual humanities
major, especially since I am one.)  A humanities background
is just fine, but I  wish we had a little more diversity in the
field than we do. We could use some more numbers people.

Mr. Dorman, thanks for continuing to try to get input from the people
who are going to be affected by your designs.  Can't provide an
answer as to how to get them involved, but keep trying.  It's the
right thing to do.

Cordially,

Joe





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Joe Schallan, MLS    jschall at glenpub.lib.az.us
Reference Librarian   (602) 930-3555
Glendale (Arizona) Public Library
5959 West Brown Street
Glendale, AZ  85302-1248