Software as Engineering

Abstract

Those words, in the introduction to the proceedings of the first NATO conference on software engineering, unleashed a veritable storm of often acrimonious debate on the viability of software as engineering. The inconsequence of this debate of more than thirty years is evident from an announcement of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center’s activities for this year’s National Engineer’s Week. The note said that, “engineers from all disciplines—chemical, electrical, mechanical, civil” would participate.2 It is somewhat strange that in the year 2000, aeronautical, bio, hydraulic, computer, and software engineers have no place even under the seemingly comprehensive umbrella of “all.” The “other” engineers may take solace that the premier engineering institution in the region, Carnegie Mellon University, celebrating one hundred years in 2000, has only those four disciplines plus materials science and engineering in its engineering school. The Electrical Engineering Department, in a concession to the fiscal tail that wags the dog, renamed itself the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, but otherwise the departments are as founded nearly a century ago. Meanwhile, across town at Robert Morris College, the school is trying to carve a niche with logistics engineering and software engineering, as neither program exists for undergraduates at any of the plethora of Pittsburgh colleges and universities. Of course, many critics would comment that neither program should exist at any college or university.