Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) v4.0 is out [pdf]

Yes, there’s been a lot of negativity toward earlier versions of this document. It’s been around for a while and represents a formal, structured, and rigid approach to software development. Historically, it reflects the 1990s era, when waterfall was the preferred method, and there was a push to make software engineering a licensed profession. At the time, we were also in a “software crisis” where large, expensive projects with extensive documentation and formalized planning often failed. Today, we have quicker releases, faster feedback, and more direct user communication (what we now call extreme programming or agile). However, this has also led to too much cowboy programming. So it’s important to maintain some level of standards. Might be worth revisiting?

Well also now entire companies fail quicker instead.

It is useless because no one will read it or use it as any type of benchmark, probably rightly so here. There is a version of this at every company, just more relevant, also already not being read of course.

There was literally nothing in the SWEBOK which dictated a particular approach to software development, formal or otherwise. It has always been just a high-level list of knowledge areas and common definitions.