Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!gatech!hubcap!billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu
From: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: What exactly is a software engineer ?
Message-ID: <5596@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 25 May 89 02:05:20 GMT
References: <CLINE.89May24173656@sunshine.ece.clarkson.edu>
Sender: news@hubcap.clemson.edu
Reply-To: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu
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From article <CLINE.89May24173656@sunshine.ece.clarkson.edu>, by cline@sunshine.ece.clarkson.edu (Marshall Cline):
> I just wrote an article with the same "Subject" but forgot to mention
> a reference to the statement that it's easier to teach Computer Science
> to Engineers than to teach Software Engineering to Computer Scientists.
> This idea was elucidated in the most recent CACM in an article about
> the Software Engineering Institute (at CMU?).

    Actually, that article states (CACM, May '89, page 596):

      "[...] many software development practitioners believe it is 
       easier to teach programming to an engineer than it is to teach 
       engineering to a programmer.  The SEI Education Program has
       been repeatedly asked for recommended undergraduate software
       engineering degree requirements.  We resist by arguing that
       the best education remains a solid major in computer science
       followed by graduate professional education such as an MSE
       (Master's in Software Engineering) program."

   Here at Clemson (an affiliate of the SEI), we require software
   engineering coursework of all computer science undergraduates;
   that requirement will soon expand to include two courses.  In the
   same article (page 602):

      "In terms of numbers of students affected, the SEI 
       Education Program can make its greatest impact by 
       influencing undergraduate computer science curricula." 
      
   Not all universities require software engineering of BSCS candidates, 
   but the winds of change are blowing.  Until then, industry can 
   accelerate the trend by concentrating their undergraduate recruiting 
   efforts on the universities which deliver "a solid major in computer 
   science" which includes significant software engineering coursework,
   and by doing their graduate recruiting at universities whose computer
   science programs allow for software engineering specialization, 
   until graduates begin to emerge from newly established MSE programs. 


   Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu