Electrical Engineering vs

Electrical engineering vs. computer science

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two
Of his advisors for a test. he showed them both a shiny metal box
With two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. "what do
You think this is?"

One advisor, an electrical engineer, answered first. "it is a
Toaster," he said. the king asked, "how would you design an embedded
Computer for it?" the advisor: "using a four-bit microcontroller, i
Would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and
Quantifies its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow
White to coal black. the program would use that darkness level as
The index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. then it would
Turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial
Value selected from the table. at the end of the time delay, it
Would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. come back next week, and
I'll show you a working prototype."

The second advisor, a software developer, immediately recognized the
Danger of such short-sighted thinking. he said, "toasters don't
Just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles.
What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. as the
Subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand
More capabilities. they will need a breakfast food cooker that can
Also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. a toaster
That only makes toast will soon be obsolete. if we don't look to the
Future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a
Few years."

"with this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solut
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ion to
The problem. first, create a class of breakfast foods.
Specialize this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry.
The specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into
Toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage, links,
And bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard- boiled eggs,
Poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelette classes."

"the ham and cheese omelette class is worth special attention because
It must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry
Classes. thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved
Without multiple inheritance. at run time, the program must create
The proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'cook
Yourself.' the semantics of this message depend, of course, on the
Kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast
Than to scrambled eggs."

"reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has
Revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of
Breakfast food. in the design phase, we have discovered some derived
Requirements. specifically, we need an object-oriented language
With multiple inheritance. of course, users don't want the eggs to get
Cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is
Required, too."

"we must not forget the user interface. the lever that lowers the
Food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. users
Won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical
Interface. when the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should
See a cowboy boot on the screen. users click on it, and the message
'booting unix v.8.3' appears on the screen. (unix 8.3 should be out
By the time the product gets to the market.) users can pull down a
Menu and click on the foods they want to cook."

"having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in
The design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware
Platform for the implementation phase. an intel pentium with 48mb
Of memory, a 1.2gb hard disk, and a svga monitor should be sufficient.
If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports
Multiple inheritance and has a built-in gui, writing the program
Will be a snap."

The king wisely had the software developer beheaded, and they all
Lived happily ever after.