Software Development and Engineering Design

re: Software Development and Engineering Design

Barry Kelly — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 11:50:00 GMT

If you haven't already, I recommend you read these essays:

http://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/reeves_design_main.html

I have more comment on my own blog.

dal blog di Brad Abrams

MesBlog — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 15:55:00 GMT

re: Software Development and Engineering Design

Luca Minudel — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:35:00 GMT

> These principles apply equally well to software

I do agree just partially about this.

1- software is flexible: this is the *main* advantage (i.e. compared to electronics) of software but it is also the main challenge in software engineering [1]
2- software is intangible: it is easy to observe the progress while a ship or a skyscraper is been built up but it's quite hard to measure the real progress when building a software product [2]
3- attributes of good software: we are just starting now to understand the relations between internal software attribute and external/perceived software quality [2]

[1] http://martinfowler.com/ieeeSoftware/whoNeedsArchitect.pdf
[2] www.software-engin.com

P.S while software engineering it's a young disciplite it was born in 1968, I mean... it is 18teen for the 2nd time this year ;-)

re: Software Development and Engineering Design

theCoach — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:42:00 GMT

I am getting the sense that the necessary tools are just becoming practical to do real engineering in software.
Of course, "getting a sense" does not make me feel like we are their yet.

re: Software Development and Engineering Design

Rico Mariani — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 15:40:00 GMT

I've tried to make this very simple but I'm on a similar path.

-Budget
-Plan
-Verify

If you listen to how I describe those steps I think you'll find they are even more similar to the PMPS than they first appear. Could it be they were on to something? :)

re: Software Development and Engineering Design

Frank Hileman — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 01:31:00 GMT

The main difference I see is communication: software is a communication medium from developer to developer, or between a developer at point A in time to the same developer at point B. The communication aspect is as important or more important than the engineering side often; otherwise, we would still be writing software in machine code, instead of using high level languages.

user->developer and developer->developer communication is so important, yet so hard to quantify in many ways. We have numerous attempts to quantify, yet without any baseline implementation (simple yet elegant) how can we measure a given implementation, to determine if it is a "good document" or a stinker?

Engineering IT

Life as a University System Administrator — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 06:15:00 GMT

Are programmers Engineers? About every few months this is usually something I bring up because I'm part of an IT group for the College of Engineering, and because I manage a group of IT staff/system administrators. It's probably largely out of guilt...

re: Software Development and Engineering Design

Jeff Atwood — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 03:33:00 GMT

> We got talking tonight about the essence of real engineering and attempted to understand if software development is approaching the level of say mechanical or chemical engineering in terms of maturity of the field

It's a fundamentally specious comparison; those engineering disciplines are based on God's rules-- physics. Absolute and unchanging. Compare with software "engineering", which is based on the rules of.. whatever some bunch of guys thought was a good idea at that particular time. God didn't invent x86.

It's certainly more art than science. IMHO.

Rambles of a University Systems Manager » Engineering IT

Rambles of a University Systems Manager » Engineering IT — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 05:54:55 GMT

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