Re:Is Software Engineering Possible?
by Jtsummers on Saturday June 10, 2017 @05:44PM
(#14529350)
That's not really accurate. I can write a small program that does not include the OS, but rather assumes it. Just as a vehicle designer doesn't have to include the gas or electric distribution infrastructure in their design, they can assume it.
If I'm conforming to someone else's interface (say the C standard library), that's equivalent to an electrical engineer assuming various standard interfaces for the equipment they're designing. It's a design consideration, but not a design task. So the project itself may still remain quite small.
When I'm designing the interfaces that others are using, or designing the interfaces between 100 [0] smaller programs so they can interact effectively with each other and their environment, then it's a larger engineering task.
If I'm conforming to someone else's interface (say the C standard library), that's equivalent to an electrical engineer assuming various standard interfaces for the equipment they're designing. It's a design consideration, but not a design task. So the project itself may still remain quite small.
When I'm designing the interfaces that others are using, or designing the interfaces between 100 [0] smaller programs so they can interact effectively with each other and their environment, then it's a larger engineering task.
[0] Arbitrary number.