Engineering is one of two types of Programming, and Programming is only one of the many disciplines which are needed to deliver IS/IT (i.e. an Information System based on Information Technology, or more simply a Computer based Service like an airline reservation service or a web-based service like Amazon).

To re-iterate briefly (this), Engineering is the process of software construction at the point where the problems posed by all other sections of IS/IT have been overcome. Engineering's challenge is solely the complexity of the application itself, and it is precisely in the area of complexity management that an engineer's skills must be spent. Failure means the program at best no longer works as intended and at worst fails beyond recovery.

Whereas all other areas of programming and IS/IT have moved with great rapidity as new technology has developed, sometimes genuinely as advances brought about by Research and Development (R & D) have made new things possible, sometimes falsely as the market is fooled into believing something "new" has appeared which is only a repackaging of something "old", the principles behind Engineering have been slow in coming but significant on arrival.

This isn't the "sexy" end of IS/IT - far from it - and yet it is by far the most challenging. It is also where software projects fail. The answers to the problems posed to engineers cannot be read in a book. Hand any project manager a failing software project and there's no guarantee that he'll not be able to do any better than suggest the whole thing be thrown away. Although the principles may be few and easy to learn success comes down to their application and to a few key skills mainly in the realms of care, diligence and a drive towards a kind of "perfect simplicity" sometimes disparagingly called "elegance".

Richard

The Principles of Software Engineering: next