Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
on as interchangeable units.
24
They lacked a distinct professional iden-
tity. The path to advancement in the hierarchical system (if indeed there
actually was one available to mere programmers) was through manage-
ment. Certifi cation programs were desirable in order to ensure a minimum
level of competence, but only as a means for assuring a standard degree
of performance and product.
25
Programmers were encouraged to be
professionals only to the extent that being a professional meant self-
discipline, a willingness to work long hours with no overtime pay, and
loyalty to the corporation and obedience to supervisors.
26
The notion that programmers could be treated as unskilled clerical
workers was reinforced by a series of technical developments intended
to allow managers to mechanically translate high-level systems designs
into the low-level machine code required by a computer. For example,
one of the alleged advantages of the COBOL programming language
frequently touted in the literature was its ability to be read and
understood—and perhaps even written—by informed managers.
27
More
than a fashionable management technique, the hierarchical organiza-
tional model was a philosophy about what programming was and where
programmers stood in relation to other corporate professionals.
It embodied—in a complex of interrelated cultural, technical, and politi-
cal systems—a particular social construction of the nature and causes of
the software crisis.
Despite the obvious appeal that the theory of hierarchical systems held
for conventional managers, it rarely worked as intended in actual prac-
tice. Although managers would have preferred to think of programming
as routine clerical work and programmers as interchangeable laborers,
experience suggested that in reality the situation was quite different.
I have already described how, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, pro-
gramming had acquired a reputation as being a uniquely creative activity
requiring “real intellectual ability and above average personal character-
istics.”
28
“To 'teach' the equipment, as is amply evident from experience
to date, requires considerable skill, ingenuity, perseverance, organizing
ability, etc. The human element is crucial in programming.”
29
The anec-
dotal evidence that suggested skilled programmers were essential ele-
ments of software development was supported by numerous empirical
studies produced by industrial psychologists and personnel experts.
The realization that computer programming was a more intellectually
challenging activity than was originally anticipated threw a monkey
wrench into the elaborate hierarchical systems that managers had con-
structed. Whereas the software turmoil of the 1950s was attributed
