Bruce Robinson answered:
> Aren't they already collapsing of their own accord, by virtue of
the fact
> that they are inadequate to produce systems that work in their
social
> environment?
Yes, but I would refer to the affected cultural oecosystem, instead
of "social environment". Not only the communities studying or using
technology, but also the ones excluded by it are passing through a
transformation. Some are collapsing by coercion of others, others by
themselves. I haven't followed the discussion about the
formal/informal aspects of education, but technology without question
is and can be used as an oppressive scaffold, as any other cultural
artifact or practice.
> The question - at least for the more alert academic, if not for
> the practitioners who have to carry out their bosses' orders to produce the
> perfect system by yesterday because the firm depends on it - is _how_ should
> the social be embodied in the practice of technological development.
> This is
> ultimately a political question - cooption, consensus or class conflict,
> which should drive the process of technology development? These threads can
> be seen in the development of different systems development methodologies
> over the last 10-15 years.
The social, the ecological, the political, as you said, are
deeeeeeply rooted within the practice of the involved communities. The
question about _how_ is linked to the ethics of the profession and is
a concern that have been growing in importance among professional
associations. In the last 10-15 years, I would say that its importance
has been rescued from being abstracted away a little earlier. TO
illustrate it, in 1967 Allen Newell, Alan Perlis, and Herbert Simon
wrote a letter to "Science" defending the existence of Computer
Science. In it they defined its subject as phenomena "surrounding
computers". Then year earlier the field had a subject that was even
broader. The Macy conferences have gather biologists, anthropologists,
mathematicians, engineers and so on. Bateson was there. In the
eighties: the surroundings have been abstracted, becoming the realm
information technologists; the computer itself has also been
abstracted, becoming the domain of computer engineers; only
abstractions of algorithms have become the ideal subject of the field.
In the late eighties a larger number of people have start to realize
that something has been forgotten in the making the road when they
where walking.
> On the term information, a lot of assumptions in information systems -
> particularly around the functions of particular types of software - are
> built around the distinctions between data (no context), information
> (context) and knowledge (incorporated into a structure that makes it
> applicable). I have never found these distinctions very useful.
In my view these form of scale, or hierarchy, is result of the
correlation between the communities that have been studying the
subject, and the organization of the subject itself. They are not only
connected, but also depend on each other, and on other categories to
be able to be useful. They have been useful in a certain historical
period of identity formation. Nowadays, to maintain them isolated, is
to take the patient form the respirator, or the beast from its
habitat. When? Well, that is an ethical issue, ;)
Ciao,
Luiz