The majority of this article tackles the over-reliance on software metrics, an issue that many people have brought into question over the last decade or so, and he does a good job of summarising the problem with it. However, in the last two paragraphs he attempts to tar the rest of the Software Engineering discipline with the same brush, painting it as a set of overtly rigid tools bureaucratic managment might use to crush the life out of any software project.
I've studied as a computer scientist and as an engineer (electronics) and it's been my constant impression that those trained in the former completely misunderstand the latter. The engineering mindset is one of creative problem solving, using heuristics, tools and systems that have worked well in the past to guide you to your eventual goal, and ignoring them if they don't make sense or will misguide you. Instead many programmers seem to want to find the general algorithm for development. It doesn't exist and in a way its our philosophers stone, it's pursuit wastes time, effort and money. Instead we should be happy with the ever expanding toolkit of techniques the modern developer has at their beck and call whenever they're necessary. That's the real essence of Software Engineering, even if some parts of the industry have gotten lost over the past few decades.
Frankly, this article's title is blatant troll-bait and I really should know better.
I think its Software Engineering as a movement, especially in the 90s, that has completely misunderstood engineering. While engineering may have a lot to offer the making software, the movement that is (or perhaps was) Software Engineering did try make a set of overtly rigid management tools.
It's by the IEEE. Most of these "elitist clubs" tend to knock out this drivel by the truck load to try and make their members feel relevant and manipulate the industry. Open Group, IEE (UK version of IEEE) are just the same. Fortunately, people just aren't interested any more.
I won't mod you down, because I think your view needs to be out there. But read the article - it hardly seems like paean to any doctrine. Rather, it seems like an insightful look back on a long career.
I've studied as a computer scientist and as an engineer (electronics) and it's been my constant impression that those trained in the former completely misunderstand the latter. The engineering mindset is one of creative problem solving, using heuristics, tools and systems that have worked well in the past to guide you to your eventual goal, and ignoring them if they don't make sense or will misguide you. Instead many programmers seem to want to find the general algorithm for development. It doesn't exist and in a way its our philosophers stone, it's pursuit wastes time, effort and money. Instead we should be happy with the ever expanding toolkit of techniques the modern developer has at their beck and call whenever they're necessary. That's the real essence of Software Engineering, even if some parts of the industry have gotten lost over the past few decades.
Frankly, this article's title is blatant troll-bait and I really should know better.