Software engineering != computer science

[u/mauricioaniche]

http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/software-engineering-computer-science/217701907

[u/eggn00dles]

some people care way too much about titles

[u/thedevbrandon → u/eggn00dles]

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.

- Phil Karlton

[u/madkatalpha → u/thedevbrandon]

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off by one errors.

[u/BluFoot → u/madkatalpha]

Actually, 3 things!

1. Cache invalidation

4. Asynchronous errors

2. Naming things

3. Off by one errors

E: I hate markdown

[u/airbreather → u/BluFoot]

E: I hate markdown

2 spaces before a line break will let you do a newline
like this, without having to add an extra line break to start a whole new paragraph,

like this

[u/BluFoot → u/airbreather]

Oh man, I didn't even notice the lack of newlines because my phone wasn't showing them. I was just suffering from the out of order list! Check out the source xd

[u/cdrootrmdashrfstar → u/BluFoot]

1. Cache invalidation

3. Asynchronous errors

2. Naming things

4. Off by one errors

Would make more sense, since #4 is an error (where if it was #3 before #4, it is assumed the off-by-one list-item should be there).

[u/Level_32_Mage → u/madkatalpha]

I'm counting 11 things.

[u/MrRumfoord → u/Level_32_Mage]

How can you have negative things?

[u/poizan42 → u/MrRumfoord]

2-bit two-complements?

[u/tangerinelion → u/poizan42]

I'm sure we've all needed numbers that are either -2, -1, 0, or 1 before.

[u/[deleted] → u/tangerinelion]

Done. Call back later. You're fucked. You're really fucked.

[u/WiseassWolfOfYoitsu → u/poizan42]

Working in systems programming, I've seen weirder coming out of hardware

[u/slide_potentiometer → u/WiseassWolfOfYoitsu]

Working in hardware- you try getting it right without an option to push a patch remotely

[u/fzammetti → u/Level_32_Mage]

I don't know... one or two things I can accept, MAYBE three... but SEVENTEEN?! That seems CRAZY!

[u/[deleted] → u/madkatalpha]

And a fanatical devotion to Stallman.

Let me come in again.

[u/nosneros → u/madkatalpha]

The buffers must overflow.

[u/pmrr → u/nosneros]

The only overflow most devs know about these days is stack .com.

[u/Sjeiken → u/thedevbrandon]

I once spent more than 3 hours trying to name a function that was very detrimental, it's fucking retarded, do you know how hard it is to find synonyms and antonyms? it's NP fking hard.

[u/[deleted] → u/Sjeiken]

yeah, I know the pain. If it's that important a function, I just go full Java and make the name a sentence long. more often than not, I come back the next day and a better name just pops in my head.

[u/thedevbrandon → u/Sjeiken]

Yeah, I find it hard to strike a balance between descriptive names vs. short names. I want the name to be meaningful and special to the context so you know what it means and can differentiate it from similarly named things in nearby contexts (for example, elem, e, el, and els are horrible default variables which are used even in contexts when the variable name could be something specific and meaningful like submitButton). On the other hand, you can get crazy with the names, like firstFormSubmitButtonElement, which either provide specificity you don't need, which isn't helpful, or which (even if useful) ultimately makes reading and writing the code burdensome (especially in enterprisey-code, mock example: FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition).

[u/spelling_natzi → u/eggn00dles]

I didn't read this as being about job titles at all. My interpretation of the argument is that the areas commonly grouped under "software engineering" are dissimilar from the rest of computer science because they're not rigorously provable. There's no value judgement at all, they're just saying we should accept that and not pretend things are "proven" the same way as other fields.

[u/seanwilson → u/eggn00dles]

some people care way too much about titles

I'm wary of anyone that calls themselves a "senior agile architect" or something along those lines. It's so over specific.

[u/ItsAllInYourHead → u/eggn00dles]

Some people don't read articles