The Tools at Hand

W ith a shovel excavator, its operator can effortlessly move 720 tons of earth with a single movement. On the other end of the spectrum, a VLSI fabrication plant lets designers create elaborate submicron structures. Without tools, a car factory's thousands of employees can't accomplish much; with tools, they can assemble a car in 18 effort-hours. Sometimes, tools can even subsume their operators' importance. The violinist Ivry Gitlis, considered one of the most talented musicians of his generation , said of his Stradivarius: " I have a violin that was born in 1713. I don't consider it my violin. Rather, I am its violinist; I am passing though its life. " Tools are clearly an important and defining element of any profession and activity: tools help us move boulders and atoms; tools help us reach the Moon and our soul. This new IEEE Software column aims to explore the interplay between software development and the tools we apply to the problem. Skilled craftsmen set themselves apart from amateurs by the tools they use and the way they employ them. As a professional, I feel I'm getting a tremendous boost in my productivity by appropriately applying tools to the software construction problems I face every day. I also often find myself developing new tools, both for my personal use and for wider distribution. Column installments will discuss specific software construction activities from the standpoint of the tools we can employ—the tools of our trade. Specific topics I plan to address include editing, compiling, documentation, debugging, testing, configuration management, issue tracking , the development environment, tool building , and domain-specific tools. Of course, this is your column as much as it is mine, so I welcome your suggestions for different topics or viewpoints ; email me at [email protected]. So, how do the tools of our trade measure up? Pathetically, by many measures. Although the software industry is large and, dare I say it, mature, the software tool industry is still in its infancy. This becomes readily apparent if we consider the cost of the tools we use. A 720 ton-rated shovel excavator is so expensive that the company selling it also provides financing. The cost of the VLSI fabrication plant effectively dictates the manufactured chips' product cycles. In comparison, software development tools cost at most a few thousands of dollars per seat. Economists track capital expenditures as a way to judge a …