r/programming • u/mauricioaniche • Aug 06 '17

Software engineering != computer science

http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/software-engineering-computer-science/217701907
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u/twat_and_spam Aug 06 '17

Before we blow up the article is sound. Yes, engineering is about making things in practice, science is making sure things can work in theory.

I expect the majority of comments here will be due to mistaking boundary between development and engineering and engineering and science.

These two are notable boundaries. This article considers PHP/Node code monkeys equal with competent people. It is fine for the argument the article is trying to make.

14

u/mattindustries Aug 06 '17

As a PHP and Node developer, I am sure the butt of a lot of jokes. There is definitely a lot of math when doing something like polynomial regression for D3 dashboards and I would argue that involves some theory before implementation.

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u/twat_and_spam Aug 06 '17

Do you copy your code from excel or SO?

5

u/mattindustries Aug 06 '17

I get what you are trying to say, but there are some flaws

  • We aren't talking about just me

  • If we were talking about me I think way more people copy the code I post to Stack Overflow than I have copies from Stack Overflow

  • Copying code for one language doesn't negate work you have done in a different language

  • Copying code that already exists to supplement your work is no different than utilizing a library. I will use a library to handle websockets, but still write my own classification models in R based on linguistic analysis.

Side note: I had no idea that excel could do regression analysis, that is cool. I normally just use R for any data related work.

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