Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
largely to numerical shortages of programmers, the “programmer
quality” problems of the 1960s demanded a subtly different construction
of the root causes of the software crisis. The problem could still be
defi ned as a management problem requiring a management-driven solu-
tion. What had changed was the prevailing conception of what program-
mers were and what they did. “The massive attack on systems software
poses diffi cult management problems,” concluded Gene Bylinsky in the
pages of
Fortune
magazine. “On the one hand, a good programmer, like
a writer or composer, works best independently. But the pressure to turn
out operating systems and other programs within a limited time make it
necessary to deploy huge task forces whose coordination becomes a
monstrous task.” Echoing conventional wisdom about the creative nature
of programming, Bylinsky maintained that the problem was “further
complicated” by the fact that there is no “best way” to write computer
programs. “Programming has nowhere near the discipline of physics, for
example, so intuition plays a large part. Yet individual programmers
differ in their creative and intuitive abilities.”
30
Companies that implemented hierarchical systems methodologies also
discovered that programmers were not content with the professional
identity that these systems imposed on them. Programmers voted with
their feet by leaving for other fi rms, and salaries infl ated dramatically.
31
One large employer experienced a sustained turnover rate of 10 percent
per month
.
32
The problem, according to one SDC survey of termination
interviews, was that programmers working in hierarchical organizations
“did not foresee for themselves the opportunities they want for profes-
sional growth and development . . . or for promotion and advance-
ment.”
33
The career aspirations of the programmers confl icted with the
occupational role they had been assigned by the managers. Many pre-
ferred to pursue professional advancement
within
programming, rather
than
away
from programming. In the hierarchical system, the higher that
individuals advanced, the more they worked as administrators rather
than technologists.
Superprogrammer to the Rescue
The IBM System/360 has been called “the computer that IBM made, that
made IBM.”
34
The System/360 systems solved a number of problems for
IBM and its customers. It fi lled in the gaps in the IBM line of product
offerings by providing an entire range of hardware- and software-
compatible computers ranging from the low-end model 360/20 (intended
