Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!periklis
From: periklis@ecrcvax.UUCP (Periklis Tsahageas)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: I should go back to school?
Summary: On Computer Scientists, Software Engineers and Programmers
Message-ID: <721@ecrcvax.UUCP>
Date: 11 May 89 12:59:44 GMT
References: <854@odyssey.ATT.COM> <1670001@hp-ptp.HP.COM> <8398@chinet.chi.il.us> <4236@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <3315@ae.sei.cmu.edu> <4255@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Reply-To: periklis@ecrcvax.UUCP (Periklis Tsahageas)
Organization: ECRC, Munich 81, West Germany
Lines: 75

In article <4255@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> ccs013@castor.ucdavis.edu (Jason) writes:
>1)  When I am upset at some one making remarks (as the ones that were made
>    ORIGINALLY by that request for job qualities to look for) , you may not
>    agree, but I really don't care about paying special attention to the
>    fact that there is not a superb correctness to my spelling.

In news.announce.newusers :
In article <6185@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> spaf@cs.purdue.EDU(Gene Spafford) writes:
|
|              A Primer on How to Work With the USENET Community
|                             Chuq Von Rospach 
|  [...]
|  If you are upset at something or someone, wait until you have had a chance
|  to calm down and think about it.  A cup of coffee or a good night's sleep
|  works wonders on your perspective.  Hasty words create more problems than
|  they solve.  [...]
(no comments)

>    Also, the situation is CS and E , not English...
I don't think that anybody tried to say that CSs are better than SEs or the
opposite (the usual argument about comparing apples with oranges).
These are (or are becoming) two distinct professions in the same way as a
chemical engineer is different from a chemist.  Obviously, nobody can be a
software engineer without knowing about computer science and I would find it
highly improbable for a computer scientist to be totally ignorant of SE.
Of course, whether CS is a science and SE is an engineering discipline is open
to dispute.

Then, what is a programmer ?
A programmer is someone who writes programs.
They may be CSs, SEs, physicists or theologists.  My humble opinion is that
ambitious software projects involving more than one programmer should be
coordinated by (at least) one SE educated by training or experience.

>  [...]
>Yes, Rich,  I have had alot of experience with E's . However, I will admit 
                        ^^^^
>to harshness; this is in light at the fact of 95% of the E's I know or knew
>are here at UCD.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All SEs I KNOW, can write specs and design software properly.  What a wonderful
world it would be, if this meant that ALL SEs IN THE WORLD could do that.

> [...]
>         You ought to see some junior in E look at the upper division texts
>for physics.  I've never seen eyes get so wide. They learn there physics 8 
>material (general physics whith calculus). They take a few upper-division (and
>lower-division) concentrated courses that are specific to there E concentration
> And then then the general education requirements and eng. application classes.
I think we agree here.
No one can be considered a qualified engineer without a firm understanding of
the scientific foundations of their discipline.  If your university produces
engineers like you've described them here, that is very unfortunate.

A slight point though : 
While most engineering disciplines are based mainly on physics and continuous
maths, SE is based, (currently) purely, on discrete maths.  This stems from the
fact that other engineering disciplines are concerned with variables taking
values from a continuous domain (e.g. the speed with which a car moves, the
weight a bridge must be able to support), while all values in a computer take
discrete values.  This should be taken into consideration when designing a SE
course.

>        ___    ___   __    ___  )___   ______________________________
>       (   |  '__|  (__   /  /  /  /   |   II Corinthians 10:17     |
>        \  |  (__)\  __) /__/  /  /    +****************************+
>         \_|Internet: jygabler@ucdavis |"Why me!?" , said Garion.   |
>           |BITNET:   jygabler@ucdavis |"Do we have to go thru that |
>           |UUCP:     ucdavis!jygabler |again?", the dry voice said.|
>      
-- 
Periklis Andreas Tsahageas           European Computer-Industry Research Centre
Arabellastrasse 17, D-8000 Muenchen 81, West Germany       +49 (89) 92 69 91 09
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