Course in Software Engineering

[minestrone]

I think it might have been the silver bullet that advocated doing the prototype in a language you are not going to use so that it has to be thrown away.

I've always been an advocate of only have one coder, and the best coder, work on the prototype and be give a chance to rework it a few times until they get a second coder onboard. Once multiple coders are on a system the basic core design is set.

My last gig before quitting contracting was taking a database, exporting it into the most unbelievably complex excel spreadsheets where the business could modify the data then upload the spreadsheet. The validation on 60,000 cells coming back in was just a nightmare.

I tried to tell them if we sit down and have a think about this we can make a UI where all the changes could be done in the system. My opinions were ignored.

[minestrone]

Apart from that, you're talking nonsense. Academic training in this domain, for the most part, is decades out of date and not fit for purpose. The real learning is to be found in the communities.

And for what it is worth about 95% of what you do in an Engineering degree is centuries old.

Even the modern stuff the engineering courses in the UK were just embracing in the 90s like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming the Japanese had been running with for 40 years.

Everyone in the software industry in the UK should have studied Deming. It is a sad state of affairs that hardly anyone in the industry has heard of him.

[VectraMan]

I'm an engineer. I build real things that solve real problems. I don't know what definition of engineer there is if it isn't that.

[minestrone]

I'm an engineer. I build real things that solve real problems. I don't know what definition of engineer there is if it isn't that.

I had a chap round the other day that felted my shed.

Is he an engineer?

[tractor]

....

Pretty much every system I have worked on in nearly 20 years of programing has originated by one person 'having a shot' at the first cut of the code then multiple people piling in with adding on various bits.

The quality of the produce of the software industry in this country is quite frankly shambolic and that can be put down to 'have a go heroes' who read a bit online and went for it.

The faster we get some kind of formal accredited training procedure in design practices the better.

It will never happen.

For what it is worth I regard myself an Engineer as I have a BEng(Hons), I don't use the title in the IT industry.

30 years ago, mainstream formal education was an ICL course in bubble sort for payroll application using COBOL.

If industry/commerce waited for educational establishments to 'catch up', nothing would get done for decades. Today's 'have a go' heroes would probably be the pioneers of yesteryear's bridges/tunnels/railways etc.

Secondary school curricula still thinks that 'computing/computer science' is competent use of MS Office apps for many kids.

It seems Brunel did not have the benefit of a BSc either. Would you consider him an engineer?

[VectraMan]

I had a chap round the other day that felted my shed.

Is he an engineer?

Maybe. If he came round looked at the problem and designed a solution, then yes. If he just did something routine exactly the same as he's done 100s of times before, then no.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Pretty much every system I have worked on in nearly 20 years of programing has originated by one person 'having a shot' at the first cut of the code then multiple people piling in with adding on various bits.

The quality of the produce of the software industry in this country is quite frankly shambolic and that can be put down to 'have a go heroes' who read a bit online and went for it.

I dare say that that's mostly down to people who got a degree and thought that meant they knew what they were doing, when they should have been taking an interest in the industry and communities surrounding it - for reasons I already mentioned.

The faster we get some kind of formal accredited training procedure in design practices the better.

god help us.

For what it is worth I regard myself an Engineer as I have a BEng(Hons), I don't use the title in the IT industry.

Is that where you learned to code like this ? : http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...ml#post1865695

[SpontaneousOrder]

Web search 'professor of software engineering' ....

First hit :

Department of Computer Science: Jim Davies
Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford : Home › People
Professor Jim Davies CITP. Professor of Software Engineering. Director, Software Engineering Programme. Governing Body Fellow, Kellogg College.

Clearly this guy thinks it is.

But Stroney above is quite correct ; had it been a legally observed title as in Germany and other European countries, then the 'have-a-go-heroes' would be an ex species by now.

I said that 'engineering' is a rubbish analogy, but the best we have in a such a immature industry - and you cite someone (an academic of all people) using the only word we have to describe his craft, as evidence that the analogy is accurate?

Sam Newman gets it right in my opinion (from 'Building Microservices'):

““Our industry is a young one. This is something we seem to forget, and yet we have only been creating programs that run on what we recognize as computers for around 70 years. Therefore, we are constantly looking to other professions in an attempt to explain what we do. We aren’t medical doctors or engineers, but nor are we plumbers or electricians. Instead, we fall into some middle ground, which makes it hard for society to understand us, or for us to understand where we fit.”

“So we borrow from other professions. We call ourselves software “engineers,” or “architects.” But we aren’t, are we? Architects and engineers have a rigor and discipline we could only dream of, and their importance in society is well understood. I remember talking to a friend of mine, the day before he became a qualified architect. “Tomorrow,” he said, “if I give you advice down at the pub about how to build something and it’s wrong, I get held to account. I could get sued, as in the eyes of the law I am now a qualified architect and I should be held responsible if I get it wrong.” The importance of these jobs to society means that there are required qualifications people have to meet. In the UK, for example, a minimum of seven years study is required before you can be called an architect. But these jobs are also based on a body of knowledge going back thousands of years. And us? Not quite. Which is also why I view most forms of IT certification as worthless, as we know so little about what good looks like.”

We're still figuring out how this stuff works. Which is why it's silly to call us engineers (which minestrone tends to agree with by his assessment of the industry as a whole), and which is exactly why is absolutely absurd to suppose that formal academic qualifications mean anything. You want a degree in 'figuring it out as we go along' ?

[minestrone]

30 years ago, mainstream formal education was an ICL course in bubble sort for payroll application using COBOL.

If industry/commerce waited for educational establishments to 'catch up', nothing would get done for decades. Today's 'have a go' heroes would probably be the pioneers of yesteryear's bridges/tunnels/railways etc.

Secondary school curricula still thinks that 'computing/computer science' is competent use of MS Office apps for many kids.

The strength of a formal engineering degree is that you are told to go through a number of designs before even approaching a possible solution.

50% of a mechanical degree is working on Newton's laws yet modern Engineers had somehow moved past being stuck thinking the steam engine is the absolute of the highlight of the branch of the science.

The concept of try, fail, learn, retry is completely accepted in science and engineering but will not be even accepted in software.

Until that changes software will never be considered an Engineering science.

It's not about the technology, it's about the way people work with the technology.

[tractor]

....

I dare say that that's mostly down to people who got a degree and thought that meant they knew what they were doing, when they should have been taking an interest in the industry and communities surrounding it - for reasons I already mentioned.



god help us.





Is that where you learned to code like this ? : http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...ml#post1865695

You do have a point