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Where did the term "software engineer" originate? The only anecdotal observation I had is that people in nontech, non SV companies use the term "developer". Pe
by decafninja 6y ago
Where did the term "software engineer" originate?
The only anecdotal observation I had is that people in nontech, non SV companies use the term "developer". People in SV style tech companies use the term "engineer". YMMV.
The line is blurring though, as I see the term "engineer" becoming more common in nontech companies too. Just like how leetcode interviews are spreading too.
- mcguire 6y agoBack in about 1970, various people realized that writing code was not the cakewalk in the park that everyone (who did electrical or mechanical engineering) thought it would be. See "software crisis". They decided that "we would have to get serious" about this whole software production thing. Some people like C.A.R. Hoare and Edsger Dijkstra said something to the effect of "formal logic..." to which the reply was, "Hol' up, there. That's too hard." They then assumed the term "software engineering" and went off in the '70s, '80s, and '90s to develop stuff like UML and the software engineeing lifecycle requirements -> code -> testing -> acceptance V-thing. For the cynical computer science programmery-type person such as myself, the end result seems to have been the software engineering degree, sort of a lite CS degree (just enough to be employable) with more project management and what-not. At least it's more comprehensive than information technology degrees.