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Alas, mathematics is really the "good enough" standard we in CS should strive for just like physics is the "good enough" standard behind ME and EE. Unfortunatel

Alas, mathematics is really the "good enough" standard we in CS should strive for just like physics is the "good enough" standard behind ME and EE. Unfortunately as CS opened to the mainstream, I think a deep fear of mathematics led us to view this as "over engineering" even when it wasn't. The results are that the majority of the web is woefully underengineered, requiring far more money and time for inferior products. As I have stated multiple times in the past, I think the crux of the problem is that software is an immature field that needs to stratify into a proper engineering discipline as it matures. Computer science should be the "good enough" standard behind software engineering. "Computer scientists" should not be the ones actually implementing software systems any more than physicists should be the ones designing cam shafts or laying out circuit boards. The opening to the mainstream you refer to illustrates the problem. The people in the mainstream should not be studying computer science, and what they practice should not be called such. They are the engineers, technicians, and mechanics of software; they are not the physicists. Forcing all of these strata into the same bucket is doing more harm than good at this point and is likely hampering the field's drive to mature.

engi_nerd 12y ago
What would software programming look like as a true engineering discipline?
- rjbwork 12y ago
  (my bias as a C# dev will show here) Most likely a professional association, with a test you have to take to call yourself a software engineer demonstrating basic competency in a couple of paradigms, and a rudimentary knowledge of patterns and practices. It's 2015, there's no reason that anyone should be writing Big Object Oriented Code, without practicing dependency injection, basic mocking and testing, and other modern development principles. And yet, here we are, with millions to billions of lines of terrible new code written every year.

engi_nerd 12y ago

What would software programming look like as a true engineering discipline?

rjbwork 12y ago
(my bias as a C# dev will show here) Most likely a professional association, with a test you have to take to call yourself a software engineer demonstrating basic competency in a couple of paradigms, and a rudimentary knowledge of patterns and practices. It's 2015, there's no reason that anyone should be writing Big Object Oriented Code, without practicing dependency injection, basic mocking and testing, and other modern development principles. And yet, here we are, with millions to billions of lines of terrible new code written every year.