Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
that the computer specialists did was valuable enough to deserve special
consideration. It might be a problem for the industry that good computer
programmers and systems analysts were hard to fi nd and develop, but
this was because software development was inherently diffi cult. The
solutions proposed to this problem generally involved elevating the com-
puter personnel: developing better tools for screening potential program-
mer trainees, establishing programs for computer science education and
fundamental research, and encouraging programmers to professionalize.
Even the development of new automatic programming systems such as
FORTRAN and COBOL, although originally intended to eliminate the
need for skilled programmers altogether, had the unintended effect of
elevating their status. For those interested in advancing the academic
status of computer science, the design of programming languages pro-
vided an ideal forum for exploring the theoretical aspects of their disci-
pline. More practical-minded programmers saw programming languages
as a means of eliminating the more onerous and error-prone aspects of
software development. By eliminating much of the tedium associated
with low-level machine coding, they allowed programmers to focus less
on technical minutia and more on high-status activities such as design
and analysis. In any case, the organizational confl icts that defi ne the
applications crisis of the late 1960s were rarely mentioned in the fi rst
decade or so of commercial computing. As late as 1963 a survey of pro-
grammers found that the majority (59 percent) reported that the general
attitude toward them and their work was positive.
42
What is novel and signifi cant about the applications crisis of the late
1960s is that it marked a fundamental change in attitude toward com-
puter personnel. This change was refl ected in both the increasingly dis-
missive language used by corporate managers to refer to their computer
personnel—not only did the formerly affectionate computer boys acquire
a new, patronizing edge but even less fl attering titles appeared, such as
“the new theocracy,” “prima donnas,” and “industrial carpetbaggers”—
and also the solutions that were proposed to the now seemingly perpetual
crisis in software development.
43
It was in this period that the rhetoric
of crisis became fi rmly established in the industry literature. But more
important, it was during this time that the emerging crisis became defi ned
as fundamentally managerial in nature. Many of the technological, man-
agerial, and economic woes of the software industry became wrapped
up in the problem of programmer management. Indeed, as will be
described in a subsequent chapter, many of the most signifi cant innova-
tions in software engineering to be developed in the immediate NATO
