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

(ieeecs-media.computer.org)
180 points beryilma | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 19:16 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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kragen ◴[21 Oct 24 19:50 UTC] No.41907822[source]▶
It's so unfortunate that this effort is still alive. The ACM canceled its involvement for excellent reasons which are worth reading: https://web.archive.org/web/20000815071233/http://www.acm.or...

It's probably also worth reading Dijkstra's assessment of the "software engineering" field (roughly coextensive with what the SWEBOK attempts to cover) from EWD1036, 36 years ago.

> Software engineering, of course, presents itself as another worthy cause, but that is eyewash: if you carefully read its literature and analyse what its devotees actually do, you will discover that software engineering has accepted as its charter "How to program if you cannot.".

https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd10xx/EWD1036.PDF

The ACM's criticisms, however, are much harsher and much more closely focused on the ill-conceived SWEBOK project.

The IEEE's continued involvement calls the IEEE's own credibility and integrity into question—as do its continued opposition to open-access publishing and its recent history of publishing embarrassingly incompetent technical misinformation in IEEE Spectrum (cf., e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41593788, though there are many other examples). What is going on at IEEE?

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beryilma ◴[21 Oct 24 21:10 UTC] No.41908554[source]▶
As much as I like Dijkstra and this particular article of his (it is an assigned reading in my "Software Engineering" class), developing any large scale software that we have today starting from formal methods is just a fantasy.

I understand the importance of learning formal methods (discrete math, logic, algorithms, etc.), but they are not nearly enough to help someone get started with a software project and succeed at it.

So, if not "software engineering", then what should we teach to a student who is going to be thrown into the software world as it exists in its current form?

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1. nradov ◴[22 Oct 24 03:27 UTC] No.41910932[source]▶
Formal methods have advanced enough now that any competent software engineer should know that it is at least an option. It's obviously not practical or necessary to apply everywhere but in any sufficiently large piece of software there are likely a few modules where applying formal methods would allow for faster, higher quality delivery at lower cost. Making those trade-offs and selecting appropriate approaches is the fundamental essence of engineering as a profession.