Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpmcaa!kathyi
From: kathyi@hpmcaa.mcm.hp.com (Kathy Iberle)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: What exactly is a software engineer ?
Message-ID: <1700003@hpmcaa.mcm.hp.com>
Date: 16 May 89 15:16:56 GMT
References: <497@dekalb.UUCP>
Organization: HP McMinville Division
Lines: 21


> The engineering methods are even less likely to learned from inspection.
> One can more easily copy the products and even some of the methods of an
> engineer than one can learn the thinking behind them.  As a result, those
> who learn solely by inspection suffer from an inflexibility, as they cannot
> adapt either the products or the methods to new situations.

This assumes that those CS types do not read nor take additional courses
(often company-provided rather than at a bona-fide university).  Once one
has learned to think, one should be able to master any subject. Anyone
who's interviewed with Hewlett-Packard should recognize that the aim of
the interviews is to determine if the interviewee can think.    

In the real world, bona-fide software engineers with a degree to prove it
are few and far between.  The rest of us learn by reading, taking courses,
hiring consultants, and by doing.   It's not the ideal, but personally I'd
rather try to turn a CS into a software engineer than a straight EE into
a programmer.

Kathy Iberle