blog: Overlooked Essentials for Optimizing Code

[BCS]

Hello Bruno,

> On 31/10/2010 05:35, BCS wrote:
> 
>> Hello Bruno,
>> 
>>> Which degree did 'Software engineers' take then?
>>> 
>> You know, that's one thing that kinda irks me: Why is it called
>> 'Software engineers' when I've never seen engineering taught in a CS
>> course (not to be confused with real "computer engineering" courses
>> that are a lot more like EE than CS).
>> 
> What are you referring to when you say "called 'Software engineers'" ?
> The people who write software, or the college degrees/programs? I
> didn't quite get it.
> 

I've never seen the details of a software engineering program so I can't 
say much on that, but my current job title is software engineer and I know 
*I'm* not doing engineering.

>> The most direct example of this I know
>> of is in "The Pragmatic Programmer": Item 18 is "estimate to avoid
>> surprises" and then goes on to describe how to do that. Well, if
>> programming were taught as an engineering discipline, that would be a
>> pointless (if not insulting) comment because what it is advocating is
>> so
>> fundamental to engineering that it goes without saying.
>
> What do you mean "if programming were taught as an engineering
> discipline" ?

I'm saying that programming is *not* taught or practiced as an engineering 
discipline (Ok, maybe the DOD, DOE and NASA do). Furthermore, I'm presenting 
the fact that "item 18" needs stating as evidence supported to support my 
assertion and supporting that with the assertion that any practitioner of 
an engineering discipline wouldn't need to be told about "item 18".

To be totally clear, I'm not saying that software development should be done 
as an engineering process, but that the standard practices (and job title) 
of today shouldn't claim to be engineering.