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Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

ncees.org

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Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

#51

Post by Natsu »

GuiA wrote: post #4
tomkinstinch wrote: post #3

What does this mean for people currently working as programmers? Will it be necessary to study up and get licensed to remain competitive?

It could be necessary to be licensed for government jobs or jobs in large companies building real time critical systems (ie power grid control software, avionics, etc). I doubt it'll ever catch on for programming jobs in mobile/web/etc

It's funny you should mention avionics. Because I remember writing test scripts for one such system merely because I had "basic" on my resume. I had no idea what a FADEC was. Granted, we ended up doing these many thousand line copy-paste jobs (i.e. figure out which of a few test functions to call for each of about 10,000 inputs)

I ended up learning VBScript for that job, automating some of the testing, and turning the scripting tool they gave us into a music player.

Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

#52

Post by stripe »

rprasad wrote: post #40

People 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…

This exam is just a scam. Engineers working in those areas you described are fully aware and do not need an exam to proove it. Engineers new to those areas will not get a job because of having done this exam. With just a so low percentage in QA passers know jack about testing very-whatever scenarios. They just get dipped into QA sauce like a hairless chicken breast. Same for all other areas described in the exam IMHO. There is a 'great' handbook from some US military on how to develop their software. It is a massive block of everything - but after working on every single item described in there you have in depth know edge about processes, code standards and test coverage.

Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

#53

Post by chiph »

tdicola wrote: post #21

A software engineering certification exam with no coding seems a little odd.

So, which language should they use? Java? C#? Knuth's MIX?

What if the job requires a different language -- does the Engineer's professional certification suddenly become invalid, thus denying him work because of a technicality, even though he otherwise has tons of experience in that language?

Also - that would really fragment the hiring scene. But a bonanza for the testing company.

Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

#54

Post by aptwebapps »

swalsh wrote: post #38
spamizbad wrote: post #8

Looks 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…

There are writers who write novels, and there are writers who write textbooks. While the end results look a lot alike. Both have covers, both have words, both convey concepts, the purpose of the books is completely different. As such, the methodology for writing the book is different. There might even be some commonalities between the two. You might do fact checking between the two... but the facts matter a lot more…

Did you reply to the correct comment? If so, that went completely over my head. Care to explain?

Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

#55

Post by eropple »

davidcuddeback wrote: post #47
eropple wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It doesn't have to be 100% strict UML. It just has to get the point across.

So, not-UML?

Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

#56

Post by rsl7 »

AYBABTME wrote: post #50
rsl7 wrote: post #18

I 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.

Those are problems in the sense that software is a young industry, unlike other engineering disciplines (or "actual" engineering). We're likely to abstract away today's issues, whereas matter and physics are more direct, immediate limitations in engineering disciplines.

We don't have a "software physics".

Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

#57

Post by davidcuddeback »

eropple wrote: post #55
davidcuddeback wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It doesn't have to be 100% strict UML. It just has to get the point across. So, not-UML?

When you write a text message without proper punctuation or capitalization, do you say that's not English because it doesn't follow strict grammar rules? No. It's less formal English, but it's still English.

Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

#58

Post by eropple »

davidcuddeback wrote: post #57
eropple wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't have to be 100% strict UML. It just has to get the point across. So, not-UML?

When you write a text message without proper punctuation or capitalization, do you say that's not English because it doesn't follow strict grammar rules? No. It's less formal English, but it's still English.

Bad analogy. If I have

  something
I do say it's not XML.

Re: Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013

#59

Post by tbranch227 »

barik wrote: post #22
GuiA wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be necessary to be licensed for government jobs or jobs in large companies building real time critical systems (ie power grid control software, avionics, etc). I doubt it'll ever catch on for programming jobs in mobile/web/etc

I think it will become necessary for the areas you outline, particularly in industrial control. Although best practices and standards have been established for electrical systems and mechanical systems, my observations in factory control show that the programming components continue to be the most fragile and buggy. And currently the legislation here lags as well since software systems are typically __not__ certified…

You sound like someone I know. I agree with the above. This cert is definitely applicable for engineering tasks at my place of business and something I will probably pursue. It's very beneficial when proposing on harder tasks. Web dev, which I do as well, generally doesn't reach this level of rigor.
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