The "Software" Snarl

The computer is running into trouble--because of shortcomings in man, not in the machine. In just two decades, the electronic marvels have grown so complex and intricate to operate that man is hard put to maintain the proper control. The problem is one of telling the machines what to do and how to do it--through an arcane shorthand of codes, languages, programs and systems known as computer "software."

The software snarl is worsening despite gargantuan outlays to end it. In the $6 billion electronic data-processing market, more money will be spent this year on software than on computers themselves. Yet the most versatile computers are forced increasingly to perform well below their potential. Even the costliest ($160,000 a month rent) computer cannot store data, sort out information or solve problems without precise and detailed guidance. For some of the latest "third generation" computers, such programs require 1,000,000 hand-devised computations. If any one of them is wrong, or if the programmer overlooks something, the computer eventually will make a costly mistake or quit functioning.

When somebody in the Army Reserve's computerized data bank in St. Louis goofed not long ago, for instance, some 200 New York State Reservists were ordered to two weeks' active duty in Wisconsin--to the complete surprise of the Pentagon. Last May, the New York Stock Exchange's $6,000,000 computer-fed ticker tape broke down for 3 1/2 hours because of a loophole in the process by which Wall Street's most sophisticated computer ordinarily detects errors in punched cards feeding it new information. With the electronic system jammed, the Big Board hastily switched to its old methods of recording stock transactions by hand.

Bonuses for Piracy. Complicating the difficulties in devising programs is a growing shortage of programmers. At least 100,000 men and women are now busy giving instructions to the nation's 37,000 digital computers, but another 50,000 such jobs are going begging. Computer makers are producing the equipment faster than the industry can train such specialists. Moreover, computer users fault many specialized schools for accepting pupils with no aptitude for the job and for turning out unqualified graduates. "If we were to have no advance in hardware for five years," says President Walter F. Bauer of Informatics Inc., a Los Angeles firm specializing in software problems, "the programs would just be catching up to the capabilities of the machines."

In the scramble for manpower, want-ad columns bulge with invitations to housewives and high school graduates to take up programming. Corporations shamelessly pirate each other's help, then pump captured employees for names of more candidates for raiding. Specialized recruiting firms have sprung up collecting bonuses of up to $2,000 per programmer. The competition has put programming among the U.S.'s best-paid technical occupations. Qualified persons with computer training can land $7,000-a-year jobs; the pay goes to $10,000 after two years, and a five-year veteran (at age 25 or so) will often draw $14,000. Top creative experts may earn $22,000 and up.

Wayward Slobs. Many programmers are fractious fellows who delight in disdaining the button-down graces of corporate life, such as wearing a necktie to work. "We give management a hard time," says Programmer Armin Bendiner, 27, of Washington, D.C. "They're annoyed because they're at the mercy of us wayward slobs."

Clannish, often introverted, programmers labor over problems that demand logical thinking (though not necessarily mathematical background) and painstaking attention to detail--yet defy solution by any standard or scientifically disciplined approach. "Some call it an art and some call it black magic," says A. W. Carroll, RCA's manager of systems programming. Whatever it is, the talent is scarce enough that many companies show great tolerance for "wild ducks." "I overcame my prejudice against working for IBM," says full-bearded Manhattan Computer Expert Larry Josephson, 28, "when I was interviewed by a man dressed in a musty old suit and tennis shoes. We just talked about drinking and sex."

The software snarl caught computer manufacturers underprepared, partly because the uses of computers proliferated beyond expectations and partly because the third-generation machines required wholly new and vastly more complicated programs than earlier models. "Sometimes," says Executive Vice President Paul Rice of Chicago's Daniel D. Howard Associates, "people who rushed to get a computer have spent three desperate years trying to utilize it."

The Logic Factories. One consequence of such snags is the swift rise of software service and consulting companies, which offer high-level technical support, such as systems design or programming to meet individual specifications. By one estimate, there are now some 2,500 of these logic factories, the bulk of them one-to three-man shops. At least two dozen are publicly owned corporations. The largest, Los Angeles' Computer Sciences Corp., has grown from a two-man firm in 1959 into a $37 million-a-year enterprise with 2,500 employees and 156 customers.

Some time in the '70s, most com puter men predict, today's software knot should be untangled, partly by a vast expansion of computer schools and partly by more automation. Computer companies are straining to concoct programs that write other programs. Thus they foresee the day when a few standardized reels of tape will begin to replace programmers at the simpler levels. Still, few in the industry expect competent technicians to face unemployment. If today's pattern holds, every new triumph in computer technique will only fortify the demand for wider applications. The saturation point for computers is as yet nowhere in sight.

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