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World perspective on degree courses

From what I understand/have evidence of the UK had the first software engineering Bachelor's degree courses. I have linked to a reference that shows that Sheffield was one of the pioners and have had a personal communication with the author that confrimed that Imperial was the first, but have yet to find any evidence. Also it should be noted that there were certainly masters courses in the UK prior to 1987 but again I have not found any other evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smogit (talk • contribs) 11:15, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

POV in lead

The term software engineer is used very liberally in the corporate world. Very few of the practicing software engineers actually hold Software Engineering degrees from accredited universities. In fact, according to the Association for Computing Machinery, "most people who now function in the U.S. as serious software engineers have degrees in computer science, not in software engineering".

This passage seems to carry an implication that software engineering is not an academically vetted title. The provided quotation is used to imply that software engineers are not trained as such; however, it is merely providing a statistical fact, that most software engineers are CS graduates. However, many CS curricula offer or require software engineering tracks -- the source states this. This is akin to saying that most AI researchers aren't "AI degree" holders, as I have yet to hear of any such thing. I think it would more true to say that most schools don't offer software engineering degrees because most don't consider it to be separate from computer science. Since I consider the above passage to be a plainly POV interpretation with selective quoting, I am removing the statement and will replace it with a more neutral one. Ham Pastrami (talk) 05:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is a full paragraph from the source, emphasis mine:

Most people who now function in the U.S. as serious software engineers have degrees in computer science, not in software engineering. In large part this is because computer degrees have been widely available for more than 30 years and software engineering degrees have not. Positions that require development of large software systems often list “Software Engineer” as the position title. Graduates of computer science, computer engineering, and software engineering programs are good candidates for those positions, with the amount of software engineering study in the programs determining the suitability of that graduate for such a position.

Ham Pastrami (talk) 05:59, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Category box not appearing

Does anyone know why the Category box isn't showing up? The text is there, but not the usual outline and shading that usually goes along with it. Ham Pastrami (talk) 19:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC) Never mind, looks like it was a problem with the Foundation's advertising banner. Ham Pastrami (talk) 19:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Not Engineers

I see that there is a discussion of this subject in the article. I just want to weigh in that programmers are not engineers because they do not work with physics. All engineering disciplines work with physics, such as kinematics, thermodynamics, or electromagnetics. The naming of this article, as opposed to it simply being a redirect to programmer, is propagating this misuse of the term engineer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.89.174 (talk) 15:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

With this definition, is it even possible to have a Software "Engineering" discipline or title. It is a stretch to say that Software Engineers use physics (or an understanding of physics) in their daily activities to develop software. Granted, the more a software developer gets into electronics, you could argue that they are an engineer, but... Maybe they ought to call it "Firmware Engineering".  :) Srfleckenstein (talk) 13:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

What's the source for the assertion that "All engineering disciplines work with physics?" One dictionary definition of engineering is:

1a. The application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems.

I don't see any restriction in there to physics. Surely chemical engineering is a discipline, but it is based on applications of chemistry, not physics. MIT, whose opinion ought to count for something, has a department of "biological engineering." A discipline of "agricultural engineering" has existed since the early 1900s.

I don't much like the term "software engineering." I think it carries a lot of ideological baggage with it. To my way of thinking, software development is still very much an art and will be for a very long time. But that's beside the point. The first thing is that it is a well-defined term in widespread use. You might as well complain that there is no such thing as an automobile, because they don't really move by themselves... or that the phrase "steep" learning curve should mean something that is learned very quickly... or that "taxpayer dollars" should be "taxpayer's dollars." It's beside the point. The language is what it is.

And the reason why software engineering is a misnomer is not that software engineering does not involve physics. It is that it is very hard to find any examples of the use of science or mathematics in a software engineering textbook. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:37, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Chemical Engineering is a discipline of engineering that is based on application of physics, mathematics, and chemistry. Formal Chemical Engineering curriculum involves only one or two more chemistry courses over what students in other engineering disciplines have to take. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.82.21.161 (talk) 16:46, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Dijkstra and Software Engineering

Does anyone understand Dijkstra well enough to know exactly what he had against software engineering?

Quote:

The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus.

98.31.14.215 (talk) 01:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure this discussion really belongs here, but I suppose it is relevant to the controversy about the term. I can't claim to be a Dijkstra expert, but I suspect, asked what he thought of software engineering, Dijkstra's answer might have been similar to Gandhi's when asked what he thought of western civilization: "I think it would be a good idea!". I think Dijkstra would have argued that programming requires effective reasoning and the application of computer science, based on mathematics, and would not have expected that from the "software engineering gurus", who, he might claim, were misusing the term (see also the Dijkstra quote in footnote 20). In other words, I don't think Dijkstra had anything against "software engineering", as he would have wanted the term to be used, but he had something against "software engineering gurus" and against something inaccurately called "software engineering" by others. --Boson (talk) 10:44, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The bigger picture

I wonder if the current article is missing the bigger picture. In the introduction this article mentions the Software development process, but the article itself explains a lot of details about the current situation. It is all well referenced and all. But I keep the feeling this article isn't giving a proper general introduction of the field. It seems to be written for all software engineers to tell them about the current events.

I think the current article is missing the bigger picture and is at first written for the wrong audience. I think it should at first focuss on all non software engineers. It should at first explain the wifes, childs and school kids about software engineering...!? I have compare this article with the featured Electrical engineering article, and think that that article is giving much more basic information.

Now don't get me wrong. I think this article is giving a lot of valuable information. I would like to move most of this info to other data and recreate an article here much more basic, for a larger audience. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:12, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

As a start I have moved:

• The "Ambiguity and controversy" section to Debates within software engineering article.
• The "Current trends in software engineering" and "Software engineering today" to History of software engineering

I just noticed most of this work seems to be written by one anominous user User 204.134.9.1 around 2004. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 15:09, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

A new Software Engineering template

This discussion started on Template talk:Software development process and Template talk:Software Engineering.

I designed a new Template:Software Engineering template here to replace the existing Template:Software development process‎. This new template has more possibilities to give a more detailled view on the field. At the moment some of the parts needs some more work, as always. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:15, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that it should replace that template. That template is about a multidisciplinary process that includes software engineering but is not summed up by software engineering. Software engineering describes a skill that evolves much faster than any one process. You are doing both software engineers and those who work with software engineers a disservice by trying to monopolize all the software development terminology under the umbrella of "software engineering." Oicumayberight (talk) 03:04, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

You opposition makes no sense to me. The new template is based on the statement, that "the software development process is the central issue in software engineer, and software engineering is the main discipline studying the software development process". You keep denying this. Now I told you I could list a dozend Software Engineering introduction books. I will name two:

• P. Naur and B. Randell, (Eds.). Software Engineering: Report of a conference sponsored by the NATO Science Committee, Garmisch, Germany, 7-11 Oct. 1968, Brussels, Scientific Affairs Division, NATO (1969) 231pp :

This is this first mayor publications 40 years ago with the central issues: DESIGN, PRODUCTION and SERVICE in the main chapters 4 to 6. Fig 1 on page 11 already gives an overview of the THE SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT PROCESS PHASE AND FUNCTIONS with Some problems in the production of large-scale software systems.

• Ian Sommerville (2007). Software Engineering, 8th ed., Harlow, England: Pearson Education. Content, Presentation chapter 1

Sommervill explains here:

Software engineering is concerned with theories, methods and tools for professional software development. It is an engineering discipline that is concerned with all aspects of software production. System engineers are involved in system specification, architectural design, integration and deployment.

Now I can go on and on. But this is not the point. I think in Misplaced Pages the Systems engineering articles and the articles about the Software development process‎ should be better integrated. Keeping two templates here is only confusing. Now there is still a lot of work here:

1. This article should better express the relation with the Software development process‎
2. The previous (good) article here could maybe be recreated in Wikibooks.
3. The two Software development and Software development process‎ should be better integrated
4. The List of basic software engineering topics or Topic outline of software engineering can be improved.
5. There is a needs for a better understanding about the Prominent figures in the history of software engineering.
6. There is a need for more illustrations in the software engineering articles
7. And last but not least, the Software Engineering template

The new Software Engineering template is just in first step in improving the field of Software engineering in Misplaced Pages. I would like to go own, and could use some help and feed back. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 12:55, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

You can try to oversimplify it by saying that software engineering is the main discipline. I'm sure there are product developers and project managers that would disagree with you, but that's beside the point. The point is that software development is multidisciplinary. You're trying to pull the disciplines of "software development" that have little to do with engineering under the umbrella of "software engineering" as if those functions are a less important subclass of engineering.

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