https://markstaples.com/2008/11/28/computer-science-vs-software-engineering/ Software, research, and leadership Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:54:41 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://markstaples.com/2008/11/28/computer-science-vs-software-engineering/#comment-40 Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:54:41 +0000 http://www.markstaples.com/?p=53#comment-40 Thanks anonymous! No I hadn’t seen those pages.
I like Steve McConnell’s article, but I’m not sure I agree entirely with his statement that science vs engineering is the same in software as in the physical sciences. Scientists create better models of the world, Engineers create better worlds using models. I discuss this more in the introduction to my PhD thesis, but the basic issue is that a lot of computer science is only concerned with formal models of computation, and is never concerned with how they relate to the real world. Computer scientists are more like mathematicians than scientists or engineers. Paul Shen is saying a similar thing, so I think I like his article better. 🙂

]]> https://markstaples.com/2008/11/28/computer-science-vs-software-engineering/#comment-39 Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:15:20 +0000 http://www.markstaples.com/?p=53#comment-39 Thanks for a good post. I don’t know if you’ve seen the following sites, but they also have good information comparing the two disciplines (and certainly they are not the only ones):
http://www.zenperfect.com/2007/07/30/computer-science-vs-programming-software-engineering/
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991216/mcconnell_01.htm

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