Abstract:



The motto that appeared on my slides for many years, “connecting theory to practice”, is like motherhood; nobody dares to oppose it, at most half of us could actually do it, and many are actively trying to prevent it. Over many decades, I have been fascinated by Computer Science theory and software development practice but disappointed by both.

• The theory is often needless arcane and complex because very specialized concepts are used where more general classical concepts would do the job better.
• Software development practice generally ignores classical Engineering principles because the developers do not know how to apply those principles and do not see them applied by more experienced developers.
• I know of very few cases where theory has successfully led to improved software development practices.

Vortragender:

David Lorge Parnas

Prof. David Lorge Parnas ist Professor für Software Engineering, SFI Fellow und Direktor des Software Quality Research Laboratory an der Limerick Universität . Prof. Parnas erhielt seinen B.S., M.S. und Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering - System und Kommunikationswissenschaft von der Carnegie Mellon Universität und erhielt ein Ehrendoktorat von der ETH in Zürich und der Catholic University von Louvain. Prof. Parnas ist Mitglied der Royal Irish Academy, Fellow of the Royal Society von Canada und Fellow von der Gesellschaft für Computing Machinery (ACM). Er ist lizensierter Professional Engineer in Ontario. Prof. Parnas hat an der McMaster Universität gelehrt ebenso wie an der Universität von Victoria, der technischen Hochschule Darmstadt, der Universität von North Carolina in Chapel Hill und der Universität von Maryland. Er war Berater für das Atomic Energy Control Board von Canada in der Frage sicherheitsrelevanter real-time Software in der Darlington Nuclear Generation Station. Neulich erhielt Prof. Parnas den "IEEE Computer Society 60th Anniversary Award" (mit Maurice Wilkes).