Xref: utzoo comp.object:3128 comp.software-eng:5321 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!hsdndev!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Documenting OO Systems Message-ID: <1899:Apr1206:12:4991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Date: 12 Apr 91 06:12:49 GMT References: <3201:Apr705:40:4591@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Organization: IR Lines: 46 In article jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) writes: > >I am proud not to be a software engineer. > See, this is the really interesting thing to me: I cannot think of any other > technical discipline in which people swagger around bragging about how they > are not engineers. Mathematics is a technical discipline. What do you mean to say? Every working definition of ``engineering'' appears to exclude computer science. Here's a question: New York State imposes legal requirements upon anyone working in the recognized fields of engineering. A ``professional engineer,'' for instance, must pass a test in his field before he can use that title. What would you put on a test for software engineers? The existing tests for engineers include some amount of jargon, to be sure, but they also include *problems* that relate directly to problems in the *real world*---problems whose solutions are applied directly by engineers every day. Most of the answers aren't obvious, even to someone acquainted with the jargon. So how would you test software engineers? Would you make sure they knew the latest terminology? Or would you aim for the blindingly obvious? ``True or false: If you need code ten times, it is cheaper for the code to be (a) rewritten each time; (b) stored in a library.'' Or would you use material from what appears to be the vast majority of software engineering literature---theories that are neither applied by working programmers, nor proven to help solve *real world* problems. Maybe there is some engineering behind ``software engineering.'' I'd love to hear what it is. If you have an example, send me e-mail, and I'll summarize. > Would > anybody even HIRE a person in any other discipline that not only had no > formal background or credentialization, but was actually PROUD of it? Be serious. There is a huge difference between someone without formal training or credentials and someone who is proud not to be a software engineer. ---Dan