"When, in the late sixties, it became abundantly clear that we did not know how to program well enough, people concerned with Programming Methodology tried to figure out what a competent programmer's education should encompass. As a result of that effort programming emerged as a tough engineering discipline with a strong mathematical flavour. This conclusion has never been refuted, many, however, have refused to draw it for the unattractiveness of its implications, such as

1. good programming is probably beyond the intellectual abilities of today's "average programmer"

2. to do, hic et nunc, the job well with today's army of practitioners, many of whom have been lured into a profession beyond their intellectual abilities, is an insoluble problem

3. our only hope is that, by revealing the intellectual contents of programming, we will make the subject attracting the type of students it deserves, so that a next generation of better qualified programmers may gradually replace the current one.

The above implications are certainly unattractive: their social implications are severe, and the absence of a quick solution is disappointing to the impatient. Opposition to and rejection of the findings of programming methodology are therefore only too understandable. We should remember that the conclusion about the intrinsically mathematical nature of the programming task has been made on technical grounds, and that its rejection is always for political or emotional reasons."

EWD611 (http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EW...)