Actually I dont disagree with the “academia and engr” having different
mindsets and it is so for a reason. I am also not judging one to be the
worse.
Neither am I advocating a driver programmer be a PhD.
What scares me is a guy from a totally non CS background whos heard driver
programming
is very cool. Picks up Walter Oney learns a few APIs pulls up an existing
driver modifies it to get another one working has practically no idea of
software engineering/ OS leave alone comp arch. And now gets into the
business of writing *kernel mode* drivers. And I dont think there
are any of such types on this list but you ll be surprised at how many there
are out there. I totally question the quality of drivers being spit out by
such people.
Perhaps after 10 years he ll be very good but hes dangerous to begin with.
As an aside PhDs dont necessarily turn up in universities. Look around in
the architecture / research dept of your own company, if you see a bald ugly
guy drinking
too much water and laughing very loud hes probably one of them no good
fellas.
banks
“Maxim S. Shatskih” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>> beyond me. Academia is a strange, in my opinion, deeply unattractive
>> place, that works very differently, because the incentives are
>> different.
>
> Well, maybe “unattractive” is too strong a statement, but incentives are
> different for sure. The main difference is IMHO that these guys love to
> play
> with some smart new things regardless of their practical fitness to a
> useful
> purpose.
>
> They just invent something - without considering the possible practical
> use of
> their invention, good and bad sides of it from the practical point of
> view -
> and play with it.
>
> Engineering uses another approach. Engineer always has a task of
> implementing
> some device or software. The device/software must fit the particular
> purpose,
> and has the particular requirements. Engineer solves the practical task,
> his
> work must be really usable for some purpose. That’s why engineers use the
> KISS
> principle, while scientists do not.
>
> If the “academia guy” goes in for engineering - then often this is nearly
> a
> disaster. He will create something overdesigned, bloated, full of
> unnecessary
> smartness which usually makes handling of the device/software overly
> complex,
> and so on.
>
> –
> Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
> StorageCraft Corporation
> xxxxx@storagecraft.com
> http://www.storagecraft.com
>
>