Talk:End-user computing
- End User Computing is similar to the End User approach to software development, but differs in that EUC allows users to (re)program applications. Research explores alternative ways for users to write applications without using traditional computer languages. In the EUC approach, the End User is assumed to have the knowledge needed to complete tasks, while the typical End User is expected to access existing knowledge in applications. Is that about right?
-- anonymous
What's in a name?
I think that the edits of April 22 were a good step, except that they didn't account for the connotation that I was trying to use. I used “end-user computing” since we have had this discussion many times in IT. Here on 'wiki', there may a larger framework (around EUC) that will cover the range of connotations may need to be covered.
When I started this page, I was trying to describe KBE’s impact on Engineering. One example was the use of ICAD which had remarkable payback events that were sustained over several years. One characteristics of the type represented by the KBE example is how engineers actually did their work with what could be called a development language which had been extended with '___domain' particulars.
The main point about this connotation is that the 'user' and 'developer' roles are intermingled. In the current vogue for KBE, the language is VB; however, the language is used within a context of an interactive and highly-competent set of workbenches. The idea is that the end user (we might use SME here) has access to this power. This use of VB is not unlike that of an Excel/VBA session. In this newer KBE approach, though, any extensions to the systems that are required to support this type of end-user computing is C++ based and requires extensive training and development knowledge. One might say that venturing into this side of the field really takes one away from the SME role.
Further, I've heard it said many times that it's easier to take an expert (___domain) and teach them computational tricks than it is to teach ___domain knowledge to the computer expert. A demarcation between the ___domain and its tools is important in this regard.
Yet, at the same time, we have to discuss the growing incursion of computational modeling into all of the higher-order disciplines. In this case, the computer as a tool actually is part of the thinking process (we can take this as far as experimental mathematics – I can provide links). Then, we would need to describe how having the computer involved both augments and limits the solution process.
Now, the April 22 edits mentioned the influences that we’ll see from the growing presence of Internet/Intranet capabilities and applications. I thought that was a good touch and ought to be expanded further.
So, the question now is how to merge these two threads into something coherent, such that the gaps are obvious such that we can get them filled in. jmswtlk 01:35, 23 April 2006 (UTC)