On 2/3, Julian Humphries wrote

...snip
>Don't you think that the software engineers, information scientists and
>programmers that create the system that manages your money at the bank, or
>processes tickets for airlines or create knowledge systems for medical
>diagnoses started each of those processes with no particular experience or
>training in their customers discipline?
...snip...
>Part of the problem is the many people, particularly within museums for some
>strange reason, think that these kinds of jobs are just rote tasks that can be
>learned and accomplished easily.  I presume this is simple ignorance of the
>skills and training required to do a good job.  But the singularity with which
>software creation gets singled out for such condescension is perplexing.
...snip...

Right On Julian,

Another part of the problem is the failure to recognize the difference between
customizing an off-the-shelf data base package so the screens look pretty and
actually designing a data base. Designing involves hundreds of hours of writing
code. Writing code is how one tells the computer what to do. Anyone can buy
FoxPro or an Xbase package and customize some screens. It will allow one to do
simple information collecting and sorting but it won't be as efficient as
purchasing a package designed to manage museum collections. It won't allow
hierarchical security access to sensitive information, for example.

The big guys (Willoughby, Vernon Systems, Questor, etc) have done a heck of a
lot more with their underlying packages than design pretty screens. That's why
the packages cost big  $$, on par with what businesses pay for sophisticated
accounting packages. Assuming that a moderately DOS-literate curator can design
a database cheaper and more efficently than a trained programmer is folly. Let's
say a database costs US$5000. At standard programmer rates of $100/hr. That
works out to 50 hours of programmer time. No Way can a sophisticated program be
written in 50 hours.

Gutenkauf
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As always, my opinions are my own and do not reflect those of any institution
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