Social Thinking -- Software Practice
Paul Duguid,
Aug 06, 2002
"Social Thinking -- Software Practice" is a book of essays dedicated toward addressing the gap between social science and software practice. Reviewer Paul Duguid neatly turns the subject in on itself, raising, via his examination of several of the essays, the social nature of software construction (or, why software engineers aren't always to blame for bad software). For example: "Sadly the insight isn't taken a great deal further so we don't get much sense of the possible contributions theories of organization might make to understanding this gap. Such theories should help explain why corporate software is not, as some social scientists naively wished, inherently emancipatory. After all, economists from Ronald Coase to Oliver Williamson have argued that organizations form around hierarchy.... in trying to understand the relationship between the practice of software designers, the organizations for which they work, and related uses and abuses of power."
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