Re: Programmers -> Engineers; Engineers -> Programmers

[jscheibl@mason2.gmu.edu (Jack W Scheible)]

In _my_ experience, people who major in Computer Science tend to be
dullards; if they were not, they would have majored in EE.

There is nary an engineering curriculum in the country that does not
require programming, and nary a Computer Science curriculum that
requires engineering classes.

-jack

In article <4udri5$dmv@michp1.redstone.army.mil> "Kevin J. Weise" <kweise@c3i-ccmail.sed.redstone.army.mil> writes:
>I don't have any realistic, hard statistics, but...
>
>It has been my experience that most companies will take engineers and 
>make them do programming.  Some like it, some don't.  I've worked for 
>a few companies like this and hated having to clean up the software 
>messes left by the engineers (many of whom get *very* uptight that 
>anyone would question their bizarre architectures and coding 
>practices).  Many engineers (primarily those who give a damn), after 
>living on a serious software project, pick up good software development 
>practices from good software developers(if they are around) and good 
>literature (if they are motivated to look for it).  Conversely, many 
>good software developers can pick up the needed background in an 
>engineering field (if they give a damn, if they have an associate who 
>knows the field, if they are motivated,...).  *BUT*, with management 
>usually coming from the engineering ranks, a software developer who 
>does a poor engineering job is almost always blamed/punished/rejected 
>whereas an engineer who does a poor software job is rarely noticed.  
>(Probably because those same managers can't determine if the software 
>job was good or not.) (I guess if this was a troll, I fell right in.)
>
>Anyhow, IMHO, you need both.  If you can get people with good, solid 
>backgrounds in both the desired engineering field and in software 
>engineering, that's great.  If you can't, but can settle for being a 
>CMM Level 1 organization, go for the engineers.  But, then again, if 
>you need multiple engineers, you really should consider the software 
>part an engineering field as well, and get some software *engineers* 
>(i.e., don't settle for merely code-slingers).
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>Kevin J. Weise               email:  kweise@sed.redstone.army.mil
>COLSA Corp.                  voice:  (205) 842-9083
>Huntsville, AL
>
>..standard disclaimers apply
>
>