Like you, Henry, I wonder what students on a course called "Engineering for Programmers" got out of it. Apart from a good laugh.
For a long while the IEEE in the UK resisted a proposal to confer the CEng (Chartered Engineer) qualification to programmers, arguing that programmers knew d***-all about engineering. They had a point, though I blush to admit it. There is such a thing as Software Engineering. I used to teach it -- so I've got to believe that. A certain style nazi (who shall remain nameless), an experienced programmer who thought he knew what software engineering was all about, discovered that many programmers were using a fn named upCase -- and everyone's was coded differently. So he forbade separate upCase's and insisted everyone used his, which soon became overloaded with special requirements. One day Scandinavian vowels got handled -- and a swarm of bugs was unleashed. Because suddenly bytes got changed which hadn't changed before. But the programmers loved it. At last, they said, Software Engineering was demonstrating some real benefits. Engineers, it is said, strive to ship products which don't go wrong because they can't. Programmers find this boring and strive to create an environment where things can go wrong, for every reason you can think of. Because that's how they get their kicks. (I'm being terribly unfair of course...) Speaking for the other side, a Software Engineer has been defined as "someone who can build for ten dollars what any fool can build for one." Ian On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 3:48 AM, Henry Rich <[email protected]> wrote: > > There were two job titles >> in IBM Hursley: "programmer" and "engineer" (I was one of the latter) >> and they didn't even p*** in the same johns. Engineers don't believe >> programmers know the first thing about engineering: they see them as >> having more in common with theologians. Mullahs. > > Same at IBM Raleigh. (I was a programmer.) > > The engineers had a short course called 'Programming For Engineers'. > That seemed a bit pompous, so we countered with a short course > 'Engineering For Programmers'. About as useful, I expect. > > Henry Rich > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
