Reusable chunks (was: Relevant academic research and Ph.D.'s)

[Ad absurdum per aspera <JTCHEW -at- LBL -dot- GOV>]

Mary Beth Raven:

> The "reusable" issue that Ed mentions is tough to study in an
> experimental setting--it needs to be studied and tested in a real
> setting--which means that companies like IBM and Digital should be
> more amenable to inviting academics to conduct research at their
> sites.

Or maybe the good folks at South Boeing State University
(er, Washington) could collaborate with the 600-lb. gorilla
of their local economy -- hardly anybody needs quality-assured
reusable chunks more than the people who make and maintain
aircraft.

Storage and retrieval systems, too.  Chances are, quite a bit of
thinking has already been done in these areas.  A vast amount of
information is associated with airplanes, and it's a little
different for each plane and can be a lot different from one block
to another of the same model -- somebody (probably Charlie Zatsick
at Lockheed) told me once that each operational fighter squadron
had a C-130-load of paperwork!

It may not be a great venue for literary creativity (airplane
people tend to have strong opinions about what they want and
how they want it delivered), but as a boilerplate-usage and
revision-control and document-delivery problem it makes
mainframe computer documentation look like a picnic.

Joe
"Just another personal opinion from the People's Republic of Berkeley"
Disclaimer: Even if my employer had a position on the subject,
I probably wouldn't be the one stating it on their behalf.