"Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#21

Post by t_lark » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:24 PM UTC

The cross discipline Engineering workflow is: 1. define metric of success 2. fiddle with system till metric is high enough. 3. research alternative 1.s and cheaper 2.s

Real software engineering, e.g. profiling optimization, is definitely a branch of engineering. Research into software architectures, is not.

Science is about disseminating the unknown. You do not do science in most software jobs. You are doing science if you publish your results in scientific journals. An example of real computer science is understanding how discrete systems (such as DNA or CPUs) can turn into complex systems (such as life or A life).

The author of this article has very little understanding of engineering or science.

From a Engineer/Scientist

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#22

Post by warmwaffles » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:26 PM UTC

nlz1 wrote: post #10

geocities.com sites are still there???

came here to say this. The article was good, but geocities?

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#23

Post by colkassad » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:29 PM UTC

polshaw wrote: post #7

As someone with an engineering degree, it does irk me to constantly hear programmers referred to around these quarters as 'engineers', it's extremely introspective, and IMO a little disrespectful. Similarly to the 'are you technical?' thing, why is there such an aversion to the term programmer or software developer? I have no problem with the term 'software engineers', as i do seem some parallels, and it is clear wha…

Hacker, engineer, ninja, rock star...these terms are bandied about in this community and I don't have a problem with it, it's just part of the lingo. Anyone stumbling on this community who may get confused with the term "engineer" (for example, in a HN job posting) would figure out pretty quickly that that they mean someone who makes websites. It's not like a company really wants a rock star or someone trained in martial arts, or someone with a P.E.

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#24

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:29 PM UTC

foldingstock wrote: post #4

"But we don't have this in software designs for the most part. We have the requirements, such as what the input and output looks like and the run-time constraints which dictate the maximum time a given operation is allowed to take. But there is much in-between these that is elusive to objective metrics. " I pretty much stopped reading here. Elusive to objective metrics? I agree that you can't measure a program like y…

[deleted]

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#25

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:30 PM UTC

Juniper wrote: post #5

Reminds me of the statement by I think H. Abelson though it might have been Sussman (from their SICP video lecture 1)that goes something like : Computer Science is not a science and it's not about computers. Computer science is only about computers in the same way that physics is about particle accelerators. That was the gist of it anyway

[deleted]

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#26

Post by stephengillie » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:32 PM UTC

"Computer" science is more like "computational" science - reducing everything to numbers, using logic to make safe assumptions and find paradoxes, etc. Humans can't compute as well as transistors so we use them for all of the heavy thinking.

It's engineering in the same way that constructing a stainless steel table is mechanical engineering (buy a sheet, cut it, put 8 bends in it, weld corners, grind corners, polish corners with acid, weld legs on, grind leg welds, polish leg welds)

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#27

Post by Xyzodiac » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:33 PM UTC

Try telling that to my university, the majority of my non CS classes that are required are suffixed with "for engineers".

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#28

Post by Auguste » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:34 PM UTC

jabiko wrote: post #8

robocaptain wrote: post #3

I only clicked on this link because I saw the geocities.com. I was expecting more BLINK tags and animated gifs :(

I assumed all geocities.com sites have been deleted. How is this possible?

Most are gone, but there seems to still be a few left up. No idea why.

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#29

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:34 PM UTC

polshaw wrote: post #7

As someone with an engineering degree, it does irk me to constantly hear programmers referred to around these quarters as 'engineers', it's extremely introspective, and IMO a little disrespectful. Similarly to the 'are you technical?' thing, why is there such an aversion to the term programmer or software developer? I have no problem with the term 'software engineers', as i do seem some parallels, and it is clear wha…

[deleted]

Re: "Computer Science" is Not Science and "Software Engineering" is Not Engineering

#30

Post by webcowboy » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 1:35 PM UTC

Also, Political Science.