Re:Why Software Engineering Isn’t Engineering
by iancackett on Sunday June 07, 2015 @11:31AM
(#9675015)
I'm simply going with the definition of true "engineering" taught to me as a software engineering major at university... and specifically that we don't do that formal definition of engineering. Of-course, other fields (mechanical, civil, etc) don't always follow all the formalities either, but there are ways of modelling that simply aren't available or aren't used by software engineers.
According to this guy we do mostly design and specification. Of course then you could say the Bay Bridge, the Space Shuttle, the 787 and every product that requires a long design and exploration pathway is not engineering. I don't know of anyone at Google who considers dev the same as mechanical engineering. It's more of an exercise in managing complexity, mathematical optimization, social science and design theory. But we sure as heck aren't designing for the knowns required to do what this guy defines as engineering.
But so what?