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

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

#21

Post by numbsafari »

beryilma wrote: post #14
kragen wrote: post #3

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…

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…

Since we’re talking Dijkstra, perhaps “structured programming” is a starting place.

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

#22

Post by stonemetal12 »

TrueDuality wrote: post #11
dustfinger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or tries to access a library I had to open the PDF and find this line to confirm. It really says that. It reads as if claiming that any program that accesses a library will then have a runtime error. That is obviously not what they intended, but I have read it over a few times now and cannot see another interpretation.

That line is referring to shared libraries linked to a dynamic executable. If a shared library isn't installed or available you will receive an error similar to the following: $ ./main ./main: error while loading shared libraries: librandom.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Which is indeed a runtime error. There is also the common use case of hot-reloading compiled code which dynamically l…

Perhaps if they said "tries and fails to access a library". Merely attempting to access (possibly successfully) a library is not an error.

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

#23

Post by tptacek »

SWEBOK 4 adds a dedicated section for security, but it's painfully 2012 (testing, for instance, centers on the old industry-driven "SAST" vs. "DAST" distinction). It also promotes stuff like Common Criteria and CVSS. The "domain-specific" security section could have been pulled out of the OWASP wiki from 2012 as well: "cloud", "IOT", "machine learning".

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

#24

Post by pnathan »

numbsafari wrote: post #18
pnathan wrote: post #7

Swebok is an attempt to look at the whole ox Cook Ding was cutting up an ox for Lord Wenhui. As every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Jingshou music. “Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord…

Even he admits, he had to start somewhere.

The Master might say something like this, if translated crudely -

Software engineering is programming professionally, with a dialogue on quality. Everything else is details.

The IEEE has been riding this horse for a very long time, in the face of very serious criticism (see the ACMs comments from a quarter century ago).

The presentation of it is _not even wrong_. It reads like a mid level manager at a very old enterprise firm wrote out what important at their firm, and took no material care for other ways. The SWEBOK has been that way for as long as I can remember ( an aside: my experience of Software Engineering academia has been so deeply negative to the point I wrote the field off in 2013. Decoupled from reality, PM oriented, toy studies- irrelevant. The SWEBOK is an artifact of that world. I should dip back in... Maybe Google & MS Research have done the real work here...)

There's a body of _practice_ that is mildly incidental. Most acronyms are fads. Lots of ephemeral technologies that only exist as painful grimaces. IE- CORBA- SOAP, etc...

Project management and quality management are also essentially contingent. One company does this. One that. Waterfall here. Agile there. Whirlpool the other.

What you're left with as non contingent and timeless is in the area of compilers, algorithms, etc. Which is not SWE at all.

If I were to write a swe body of knowledge, it would be in koan form, more than likely.

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

#25

Post by walterbell »

pnathan wrote: post #24
numbsafari wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even he admits, he had to start somewhere.

The Master might say something like this, if translated crudely - Software engineering is programming professionally, with a dialogue on quality. Everything else is details. The IEEE has been riding this horse for a very long time, in the face of very serious criticism (see the ACMs comments from a quarter century ago). The presentation of it is _not even wrong_. It reads like a mid level manager at a very old enterp…

> If I were to write a swe body of knowledge, it would be in koan form, more than likely.

Please do! You can continue with standalone HN comments, which can be upvoted to enlighten human and AI bot alike.

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

#27

Post by miffy900 »

So at the start of each chapter, the book has a table of abbreviations and their definitions, called 'Acronyms'. To whoever wrote or edited the book: please lookup the definition of the word 'acronym': "an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word (e.g. NASA)." Not all of the abbreviations listed are acronyms! Most are just plain old initialisms.

Since when has anyone ever tried to pronounce 'GPS' as anything other than G-P-S? Also "ECS" = "Ecosystem"? Maybe I'm just crazy but I've never heard or read anyone abbreviate ecosystem as 'ECS'. I've come across ECS as entity component system in video game engines, but never as just 'ecosystem'. Also it's defined exactly once in chapter 5 and then never used again in the book. Why even bother to mention it then?

Oh and publish it as a PDF, but then have no actual page numbers?

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

#28

Post by prewett »

ctz wrote: post #6

Runtime errors surface when a program runs into an unexpected condition or situation such as dividing by zero, memory overflow, or addressing a wrong or unauthorized memory location or device, or when a program tries to perform an illegitimate or unauthorized operation or tries to access a library, for example. The programs must be thoroughly tested for various types of inputs (valid data sets, invalid data sets and…

I suppose, yeah, when I figure out the exact reason why the error occurred, fixing it is often easy. The finding, however, can often take a long time, which leaves me feeling "once you have driven across the continent, finding your desired endpoint is a quick process". "Once constructed, installing the door on your new house is a simple and easy task". Well, sure, if you take out the time-consuming parts, it's quick and easy.

Except for all those runtime errors where the fix required major refactoring, or the problem is in a third party library, the OS, or some other unchangeable component.

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

#29

Post by mbivert »

pnathan wrote: post #7

Swebok is an attempt to look at the whole ox Cook Ding was cutting up an ox for Lord Wenhui. As every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Jingshou music. “Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord…

I'm convinced slowing feeding students, and having them produce good low-level codebase(s) (e.g. OSs, compilers) is a great Way to "holistically" teach them CS, much better than what's happening usually. "C is a razor-sharp tool"!

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

#30

Post by wakawaka28 »

ctz wrote: post #6

Runtime errors surface when a program runs into an unexpected condition or situation such as dividing by zero, memory overflow, or addressing a wrong or unauthorized memory location or device, or when a program tries to perform an illegitimate or unauthorized operation or tries to access a library, for example. The programs must be thoroughly tested for various types of inputs (valid data sets, invalid data sets and…

What exactly is wrong with it? That is a definition fit for someone who does not have prior knowledge of what a runtime error is. It might be boring to us, and I might word it a little different, but it's fine.
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