Prolific programmers contribute to certain disaster.

Professors typically spend their time in meetings about planning, policy, proposals, fund-raising, consulting, interviewing, traveling, and so forth, but spend relatively little time at their drawing boards. As a result, they lose touch with the substance of their rapidly developing subject. They lose the ability to design; they lose sight of what is essential; and they resign themselves to teach academically challenging puzzles.

Good engineering is characterized by gradual, stepwise refinement of products that yields increased performance under given constraints and with given resources.

Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence.

Clearly, programming courses should teach methods of design and construction, and the selected examples should be such that a gradual development can be nicely demonstrated.

I am convinced that there is a need for high quality software, and the time will come when it will be recognized that it is worth investing effort in its development and in using a careful, structured approach based on safe, structured languages.

During the process of stepwise refinement, a notation which is natural to the problem in hand should be used as long as possible.