software equivalents in the manufacturing world

[mano]

Hi,

In my post to the chennailug mailing list I compared software products
with manufactured 'physical' products in the following sense:

Source code = blue print
compiled binary = physical product

There were posts contesting this but I still beleive this to be right.
Any ideas to share?

mano

[mano]

In the physical manufacturing world the blueprint (or the cad drg) is
the eventual arifact of the design process. This is the precise
abstraction of the product. When this is fed to a rapid prototyping
machine, the machine consumes raw materials and power to make the
physical product.

In software, the source code, the eventual artifact of the design
process, (blueprint) is fed to the compiler (the rapid prototyping m/c)
which consumes power and produces the binary (the product). The source
code is the most precise abstraction of the compiled binary.

Alternate views pls :-)

regds,
mano

[Toufeeq Hussain]

Hi,

On 10/5/05, mano <mano...@gmail.com> wrote:

In software, the source code, the eventual artifact of the design
process, (blueprint) is fed to the compiler (the rapid prototyping m/c)
which consumes power and produces the binary (the product). The source
code is the most precise abstraction of the compiled binary.

In software, the high-level-design/detail-design documents are the blueprints.
Software is a mathematical implementation of the Design Document.

-toufeeq
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[Mano]

On 10/12/05, Toufeeq Hussain <touf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In software, the high-level-design/detail-design documents are the
> blueprints.
> Software is a mathematical implementation of the Design Document.

The reason am comparing blueprint with source code is because I can
feed the blueprint to a CNC machine and the m/c will interpret the
blueprint to produce the product ....... like I can feed the source
code to the compiler and the compiler makes me the s/w product. But
this is not possible with a high level design document. Human
intervention is necessary to make the doc a precise abstraction(!) of
the product..... in effect the source code is the most precise
abstraction of the product which a m/c can convert.