Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!gatech!mcnc!decvax!ima!think!fad
From: fad@think.COM (Franklin A Davis)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: What exactly is a software engineer ?
Keywords: degree requirements,job definitions
Message-ID: <40386@think.UUCP>
Date: 9 May 89 22:53:55 GMT
References: <497@dekalb.UUCP>
Sender: news@think.UUCP
Reply-To: fad@think.com (Franklin A Davis)
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation
Lines: 73

In article <497@dekalb.UUCP> brian@dekalb.UUCP (Brian Charlton) writes:
>	I am a student... I read that soft- 
>ware engineering as a sub-discipline under computer science; but 
>I also read in an another news group that software engineers
>were considered actual engineers (like AE,EE,ME ....).
>What are the actual degree requirements of software engineers and also
>what are their job definitions ?

I'll quote a definition by Richard Fairley from "Software Engineering
Concepts:" 

    Software engineering is the technological and managerial
    discipline concerned with systematic production and maintenance of
    software products that are developed and modified on time and within
    cost estimates. 

Dr. Fairley was a professor of mine and chairman of the faculty at the
late Wang Institute of Graduate Studies when I studied for my Masters
of Software Engineering.  He's now head of the MSE program at George
Mason University. 


Having studied (and argued about) the details of SE for a year in
school, and then working for nearly two, I feel I am just beginning to
become a good engineer.  In my five years of work before my graduate
studies I think I was more a programmer than a true engineer. 

Almost everyone who programs computers for a living is now referred to
as a "software engineer." I applaud the goal of having all programmers
practice real engineering, but I'm afraid the use of "software
engineer" as a job title is often inflated.  Since there are only a
few schools in the world so far that grant degrees in software
engineering it would be impractical to have specific SE degree
requirements for jobs.  Fortunately the real world is often a good
teacher, so people with CS degrees (or no degree at all) become
proficient engineers with experience. 

My own working definition is that a software engineer is knowledgable
and disciplined about all the tasks involved in creating a *finished
product*, including specification, planning, design, writing test
plans, coding, debugging, testing, documenting, and maintaining.  The
actual effort in writing code that just "works" is a small fraction of
the total. 

Few CS departments devote more than a semester (if that!) to software
engineering.  I'm not sure the undergraduate level is a good time to
concentrate on it -- the Wang Institute required at least 2 years'
experience, and I think that was beneficial.  But, as you'll probably
hear over and over if you continue reading this group, anyone entering
the field should be required to have some basic knowledge of the
engineering aspects of software product development.  Sadly, as I
interview recent grads from excellent schools, I find this is rarely
the case. 

--Franklin


Some references:  

The Mythical Man-Month, F. Brooks, Addison-Wesley 1975. (READ THIS
FIRST!  It's fun.)

Software Engineering Concepts, R. Fairley, McGraw Hill 1985.

Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach, R. Pressman, McGraw
Hill 1987.  (He says, "A set of techniques, collectively called
'software engineering,' has evolved...[to] deal with software as an
engineered product that requires planning, analysis, design,
implementation, testing, and maintenance.")


  franklin a davis  Thinking Machines Corp. Cambridge, MA 02142   617-876-1111
  <fad@think.com>   {ames, harvard, mit-eddie, uunet}!think!fad