Yes, because we have too many engineers. It's so hard to choose a good developer from the hundreds of applicants for each job so we need a 10 year old obsolete test to filter the good ones out. Talk about waste of money, this is something I hope is not paid by tax dollars...
Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
41–50 of 59 posts
Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
#42Looks like "How to do Waterfall" (62.5% of the test) with additional coverage of Security (15%), QA (7.5%), and Engineering process (7.5%), and Configuration Maintenance (7.5%). There are 80 multiple-choice questions spread across 2 sessions (4 hours each). Open book. An overview of the exam: http://ncees.org/Documents/Public/Exam%20specifications/PE%2... Not something I'd feel inclined to get unless this somehow bec…
And "Maintenance" is only 7.5%!
Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
#43Looks like "How to do Waterfall" (62.5% of the test) with additional coverage of Security (15%), QA (7.5%), and Engineering process (7.5%), and Configuration Maintenance (7.5%). There are 80 multiple-choice questions spread across 2 sessions (4 hours each). Open book. An overview of the exam: http://ncees.org/Documents/Public/Exam%20specifications/PE%2... Not something I'd feel inclined to get unless this somehow bec…
Yeah, not a big waterfall (or agile, or any other pyramid scheme) fan myself, but this kind of bullshit did get a man on the Moon and then a mixture of them got some kit on Mars, and generally they are doing OK. Some of them can actually scan you or your friend's internal organs to see if they're alright too - that's not going to be php on a lamp stack. I'm guessing they are probably not moving fast and breaking thin…
> Yeah, not a big waterfall (or agile, or any other pyramid scheme) fan myself, but this kind of bullshit did get a man on the Moon...
Agreed on the pyramid scheme. But the challenges listed strike me as mostly hardware, physics, and non-software science/engineering related. A Waterfall-like process is probably a good fit here since failure is far more costly than project budget/time overruns. Also, didn't the Apollo guidance computer suffer several failures? ;)
To me, software looks like the least-difficult part of the space program. Doesn't mean it's easy. But let's not overstate its importance.
Also, most developers aren't working on mission-critical stuff. I think it's fair to apply the 80/20 rule here.
> Some of them can actually scan you or your friend's internal organs to see if they're alright too - that's not going to be php on a lamp stack. I'm guessing they are probably not moving fast and breaking things either.
Funny you should bring up medical equipment. Recently, a laser caught fire inside a friend-of-a-friend during a bronchoscopy. Had to put him in an induced coma (Happy ending: he pulled through).
Just out of curiosity, does anyone here think there's anything inherit to either mainstream process (Agile, Waterfall) that puts direct controls in place to prevent complexity? Both talk about "Managing complexity" but very little on mitigating complexity. To me and prevention and elimination complexity is something our profession still struggles with.
Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
#44People on HN seem to be misunderstanding the purpose of this exam. This exam is not for web programmers, or game programmers, or any "startup"-type programmers. If what you do can be done iteratively without much problem, this exam is not for you. This exam is for people who work on very difficult, very error-sensitive, very high-end stuff that needs to work from the very start: jet planes, medical devices, spacevess…
And for an (admittedly dated) example of what can go horribly, horribly wrong in some fields: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
It's ok if your Web app occasionally spits a 500 error or your game crashes once in a while. It's not ok if your radiation therapy machine occasionally flips out and kills people with a massive overdose.
Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
#45Developers are fortunate that our field has not been swamped by credential inflation. In other words, we don't even need a degree to do what we do. It is enough to have a portfolio of solid work and some good references, and high-paying work can come your way. The last thing I want to see is for some kind of guild to arise, which could ultimately lock down the industry (via government requiring licensing, for instanc…
While I agree, I think that a large portion of developers want some way to set themselves apart from the masses - to be recognized as Uber 10X code ninjas. Those people will never rest till they create their own credentials, whether it be number of contributions to opensource projects on Github or Coderwall achievements or a standardized test.
Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would you rather see on an exam then? Is the entire notion of requirements/design/etc. not "agile" enough, or what?
Process-agnostic (So it can be carried into any organization's culture) nuts-and-bolts approach to designing, building, and testing software. Not open book, and not 100% multiple choice. Require actual code to be written from scratch, in addition to an existing systems to be "maintained" by applying a security fix, adding a feature, or put under test.
It would be expensive to hire all the NPC performers to administer a practical exam on large group engineering.
Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? Just because its structured like waterfall doesn't mean its "how to do waterfall". I read the req spec and there isn't a thing on here that isn't valuable information for every engineer no matter what process they use. Read what it actually covers and the topics they test and tell me there's something on there that is completely useless.
UML, unless you live in the land of too-tight blue ties.
UML is very useful to communicate ideas and designs to the rest of your team. It doesn't have to be 100% strict UML. It just has to get the point across. I use http://www.asciiflow.com/ to make simple UML diagrams that I add to my code when it helps clarify the code's structure. So I disagree that you have to "live in the land of too-tight blue ties" to find UML useful.
Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
#48Thinking that taking a multiple choice test will prevent you from causing a bug that will kill someone is as smart as learning to be a lifeguard from youtube tutorials.
Organizations that create weapons, spaceships, medical equipment and anything that can and will kill you if it has any bugs, needs to enforce quality not by certifying the engineers, but by certifying the organization to follow very rigid quality criteria. Some companies just have it naturally (perhaps Apple is a nice example) some companies need a structure (see things like http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/)
So if this is not for saving lives, then I don't see any purpose in taking or creating this test.
if you can code, you'll get a job, if your code is bad and has a lot of bugs, our software cycle is so fast you'll be forced to either improve or switch a profession. or work on non critical software.
Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think it would have a significant impact in the private sector though?
I think it might augment the private sector in that anyone with a licence is probably worth interviewing. I can't see it being required (not in this market) but I can see it being valued.
It could give the other way, though. I have never met a Java/Sun Certified whatever that was competent to develop software.
Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013
#50I hate it. The content of that exam is like a list of everything that's wrong with industry. Those are problems to be fixed, not things to set in concrete as the way it shall be henceforth.
Yes, like requirements, prototyping, user interfaces, minimizing complexity, profiling and performance, unit-to-usability testing, metrics, refactoring, performance monitoring...
All that ugly stuff that's wrong with the industry.