Re: Software Engineering and Dreamers

[cgrussel@bradford.ac.uk (Vibrating Bum-Faced Goats)]

Kaz Kylheku (kaz@vision.crest.nt.com) wrote:
: In article <5mcp5o$ei7$3@news.cc.ucf.edu>,
: Fritz W Feuerbacher <fwf27775@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu> wrote:
: >Kaz Kylheku (kaz@vision.crest.nt.com) wrote:
: >
: >: Software is not technology; the stuff that it runs on is technology.
: >
: >So the concept of Software Engineering Technology is not a technology?  I

: The concept of software engineering is flawed to begin with. Engineering is
: the application of physics to produce technology. 

: If physics is not involved, you aren't producing technology, nor are you
: doing engineering.

: Examples: writing software is not engineering, and the result is not
: technology, because principles of physics are not required to understand the
: internal semantics of software systems. Designing a pure logic circuit isn't
: engineering either, except when you have to solve implementation problems
: related to heat dissipation, capacitive or inductive coupling and other
: artifacts related to the _technology_.

My take is this:

Science, be it physics, chemistry, biology or whatever, is an attempt to 
discover the laws and principles which govern the existence of "things". 
"Things" can be natural phenomena or a phenomenon exhibiting certain  
behaviour which is defineable at whatever level. It's basically an 
attempt to explain the way things, any things, work. 

Engineering is the design and manufacture of "things" to suit a 
pre-defined need. "Things" can be physical objects designed to harness 
natural phenomena or they can be software operating in a man made 
environment such as a computer. If the evolution of a "thing" coming into 
existence involved a specification, a design process and an 
implementation then by my definition one could say it has been 
'engineered'. 

Mathematics exists in the mind alone. It is the process of discovering 
and describing precisely by symbolic means various kinds of facts and 
relationships. It is the process of implementing a rich "language" which 
enables scientists to express their ideas and engineers to model the 
behviour of their phenomena-harnessing implementations of those ideas.

In short:

The mathematician builds the hammer, the scientist writes the instruction 
manual and the engineer just likes to sit there maniacally hitting things 
with it. :^)

I would say, however, a computer scientist / engineer doesn't fit quite so 
easily into any of the above pidgeon holes. Civil engineers, electrical / 
electronic engineers, etc all have to work with the physical environment 
as it exists. A guy who builds a bridge cannot decide that he wants 
gravity to work sideways and save money on those nuts for the horizontal 
bolts. If a computer scientist / engineer decides that, to suit his or 
her specification best, a different architecture or operating system 
philosophy is required then that option is always open. 

I've forgotten who I'm agreeing with now. :^)

--
Chris Russell           | Bradford Bulls - Wembley 1997
Electronic Imaging Unit | 
University of Bradford  | Tough on St.Helens
TEL: +44 1274 385463    | Tough on the causes of St.Helens.