Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
clear that only a part—perhaps a small part, at that—of the program-
ming process is involved with actually using a language for writing rou-
tines.” And since the rest of the work involved required “intellectual
activity, mathematical investigation [and] discussions between people,”
Ware maintained, there was no easy fi x to the programming problem.
“All the programming language improvement in the world will not
shorten the intellectual activity, the thinking, the analysis, that is inherent
in the programming process.”
47
Many companies did attempt to formally
differentiate between programming tasks and systems analysis, but in
practice these distinctions proved diffi cult to maintain.
48
The merging of computer programming into systems analysis aggra-
vated the training and personnel problems of many corporations. The
principle diffi culty, contended Daniel McCracken, “seems to be that
systems work is not so much a body of factual knowledge, as an approach
to problem solving—and no one knows how to teach the problem solving
approach.” Perhaps even more than programming ability, the skills
associated with systems analysis were diffi cult to teach: “All that we seem
to be able to do is let the coder work with an experienced systems man,
and hope that some of the skills get transferred by osmosis.”
49
At the
least they were clearly not easy to replicate on the scale required by the
growing industry.
The increasing inclusion of computer personnel as active participants
in all phases of software development, from design to implementation,
brought them into increasing contact—and confl ict—with other corpo-
rate employees. As software projects expanded in scope to encompass
not only traditional data processing applications (payroll, for example)
but also management and control, computer personnel began to encroach
on the domains of operational managers. These managers resented the
perceived impositions of the computer boys, regarding them as threats
to their occupational status and authority.
50
The growing use of computerized “management information systems”
corresponded with a general shift in management practices in the postwar
period. The Second World War had produced a series of “management
sciences”—including operations research, game theory, and systems
analysis—all of which offered a mathematical, scientifi c approach to
business management. Many of this new breed of management consul-
tants were already familiar with the computer from their experience with
the military and pushed heavily for information technological solutions
to perceived management problems. And because these computer-based
solutions were extremely capital intensive, they were generally pitched
