Re: Ada, Software Engineering and "weirdoes" (was License to Steal)

[Jeffrey Carter <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com>]

David Starner wrote:
> 
> Saying coders = lousy programmers and software engineers = good
> programmers is not a useful distinction, and it's somewhat arrogant
> to boot.

I didn't say this. I don't use the term "programmer", since it does not
make the distinction between coders and software engineers. What I said
was that coders /= software engineers.

> 
> If making the distinction between a software programmer and an
> software engineer is useful and meaningful, it has to do with the
> design of code, not the speed of implementation. That you could code
> their problem in 4 hours is not interesting. Was your code
> documented? Was it maintainable? Did it follow a clear design plan?
> Were the same style conventions used throughout the code? Was it
> tested? Did it have a formal test structure? Many a programmer who
> couldn't write structured, maintainable code to save his life can
> churn out working (for common cases) code extremely fast.

The point is not that I am good or special because I could solve this
problem quickly; the point is that the problem is simple because I could
solve this quickly, and therefore an unreasonable schedule is not why
this small team could not solve the problem in a 15-week semester.

I think these coders could have solved the problem if they'd stuck to
coding. It's because they tried to do software engineering that they
produced a horribly over-complex analysis and design that they could not
implement. They are not "weirdoes" and thus unable to do software
engineering, despite having CS degrees, several years of experience, and
all the course work for the MS SWSE degree.

This is the overall point of my post, which was to rebut the claim in an
earlier post that one could identify a software engineer by the
possession of a master's degree in software engineering. These people
have such a degree, but they are not software engineers.

--
Jeffrey Carter