IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013 - 14

authority. In effect it reinforced the notion of the skilled
programmer as beyond standard authority. Finally, the
"egoless," or adaptive approach used teams of peers
rather than a hierarchy. It emphasized programming as
creative, and sought to minimize programmers' supposed antisocial tendencies while encouraging them as
professionals. Ensmenger argues, though, that managers
co-opted this view by emphasizing instead that egoless
programming meant that programmers were replaceable units. In the end, neither the CpT nor the egoless
approach gained dominance, and software continued to
be designed by methods that did not meet standards of
engineering practice.
In his conclusion, Ensmenger argues that in defining themselves, programmers adopted rhetoric that
allowed them variously to present their work as an
art and as science or engineering. They failed fully
to professionalize, though, and there is no established
certification process as there is in law and medicine.
His somewhat deflationary conclusion is that programmers are best regarded as technicians, who draw
both on scientific or engineering education and on
craft knowledge. As workers, they carry briefcases,
but those often contain tools - they are white-collar,
but sometimes get their hands dirty. It appears that the
crises in software - in producing it, in managing programmers, and in the tensions between the two sides
of the technician - will persist because, in the words
of a 1996 quote, "excellent developers, like excellent
musicians and artists, are born, not made" [1].
The book is thoroughly documented, with 41 pages
of notes and an extensive bibliography, though it could
use more editing to eliminate duplications. A quote
by Maurice Wilkes on realizing that he would spend
the rest of his time debugging programs appears four
times. John Tukey's coining of "software" is described
or cited twice, as is a quote from John Backus on programming as a black art, Grace Hopper's comparison
of programming and planning a dinner, along with
several other such repetitions.
The first chapter, which introduces the argument
of the book, has several passages with strong claims
that are not fully supported by their citations. It
calls Tukey's definition of software "strictly negative," though he describes software as "comprising
the carefully planned interpretive routines, compilers, and other aspects of automative programming"
- far from negative. The same passage of the book
suggests that early uses of the term can refer even to
personnel, citing five sources. Of those, one actually has "The programming and the programmers
(the 'software')," but the other four clearly use "software" to refer only to computer systems programs.
It does not help the argument to include personnel
among software. The book goes on to say that the
"hard/soft" contrast embodies hierarchy and gender
14

distinctions and that the softer aspects are implicitly secondary - yet Tukey's article refers to software as "at least as important" to computers as
their hardware.
The book says of early papers by Herman Goldstine and John von Neumann on programming [2]
that they distinguish between "the headwork of the
(male) scientist or 'planner', and the handwork of
the (largely female) 'coder'" (p. 15). It lists their
programming steps, the last two of which are the
dynamic analysis of control flow of the program,
and the static coding, which the book says is done
by low-status female coders. But von Neumann
and Goldstine explicitly say that both of these last
two steps are "the coding proper," and that every
mathematician should be able to do the dynamic
coding. What they call coding is thus not merely
the "handwork" level, and the distinction between
male planners [programmers] and female coders is
not as sharp as the book suggests.
These are minor flaws in a book that generally
develops its argument well. Its analyses of the competing claims to authority in defining programming help to reveal the social construction of this
activity, and how the efforts to form a profession
tended to exclude women.
Finally, although the book is about computing
in the United States, it finds a supporting view in a
1947 lecture by Alan Turing [3], foresighted in this
matter as in so many others:
The masters [programmers of his proposed
ACE computer] are liable to be replaced
because as soon as any technique becomes
at all stereotyped it becomes possible to
devise a system of instruction tables [programs] which will enable the electronic
computer to do it for itself. It may happen
however that the masters will refuse to do
this. They may be unwilling to let their jobs
be stolen from them in this way. In that case
they would surround the whole of their work
with mystery and make excuses, couched in
well chosen gibberish, whenever any dangerous suggestions were made. I think that
a reaction of this kind is a very real danger.

References

[1] W.W. Gibbs, "Software's chronic crisis," Scientific American,
vol. 271, no. 3, p. 86, 1994.
[2] H.H. Goldstine and J. von Neumann, "planning and coding
problems for an electronic computing instrument," in J. von Neumann, Collected Works, A. Taub, Ed., vol. 5. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1963, pp. 100-101.
[3] A.M. Turing, "Lecture to the London Mathematical Society on
20 February 1947," in Collected Works of A. M. Turing: Mechanical Intelligence, D.C. Ince, Ed. New York, NY: North-Holland,
1992, p. 102.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SprING 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013