Tenth Anniversary of UK Software Industry

Dina St Johnston, instead of going exlusively for graduates and people with high mathematical skills, was more inclined to take ‘A’ level students into whom the disciplines of programming could be more effectively ingrained. “The staff in a company run by a woman might be expected to contain a high proportion of women, and this expectation is fulfilled”, runs the EW report, “but, unexpectedly, a low proportion of the professionals employed have degrees, and there is no great emphasis on strong mathematical background in the mix of skills used.” All VPS software included ‘punching formats’ and machine-time estimates, says the report. VPS, it seems, believed in the ‘tailor-made’ approach to software, not the packaged appraoch taken by the infant US software industry.