Throughout my career, people have compared software development to
“traditional” engineering, usually in a way to scold software developers for not
doing a proper job. As someone who got his degree in Electronic Engineering,
this resonated with me early in my career. But this way of thinking is flawed
because most people have the wrong impression of how engineering works in
practice.
Glenn Vanderburg has spent a lot of time digging
into these misconceptions, and I strongly urge anyone who wants to compare
software development to engineering to watch his talk Real Software Engineering. It’s also well worth
listening to his interview on the podcast Oddly
Influenced. Sadly I’ve not been able to persuade him to write this
material down – it would make a great article.
Another good thinker on this relationship is Hillel Wayne. He interviewed a
bunch of “crossovers” – people who had worked both in traditional engineering
and in software. He wrote up what he learned in a series of essays, starting
with Are We Really Engineers?
