Personally, I don’t really feel points #3 (Continuously Refactors Code), #6 (Leverages Existing Code) and #8 (Writes Maintainable Code) are contradicting themselves.

#3 is important as code is written by accretion. #6 is important as we all want to get home early (i.e. its pointless implementing a linked list – just use something from java.util). #8 is a direct consequence of the fact that code sometimes outlives its creator.

3. Continuously Refactors Code and 6. Leverages Existing Code

In point 3, he talks bout legacy codes, and in point 6, the problem of re inventing the wheel…

kinda going in opposite directions i feel…

i’ve been working for the past year, and i’ve come across these black-box legacy codes…they are almost holy!! U kno wat they do, u use em, but no one wud ever dream of touching em!! The same fing used over an over again in all projects…sumtimes it almost feels like the project is being adapted to the codes, and not the other way round!! So i fully agree that someone has to hack the big old legacy codes at some time or the other!!

And then we come to point 6, where he talks bout reinventing the wheel! Now that too is quite solid in ma mind! Kinda spent hours trying to develop sum code, finally get it done, get that orgamsic feeling, have a smoke, then google it and i see its already been done! Doh!! shud’ve done it the other way round i guess

alwayz google, then code

Yet how do we draw the line between using existing code, and writing your own while not reinventing the wheel??

Point 8 about maintainable code alsot kinda struck me!

“Rockstars write code which follows naming conventions, code which is compact, simple and not overly clever.”

code should be simple and NOT OVER CLEVER!!

now this is interesting! u can write a 100 line code in 10 lines, but is it maintainable?? i fancy for sum1 doing maintainance work (i’ve done ma faire share of it :S ), trudging through 100 lines of code could prove to be easier that understand a 10 line piece of genius!!

Overall its a great article, but some of the points contradict each other…U have to be really very agile to draw that fine line linking all of them!

Amen

but you also need very long and messy hairstyle……

by the by, shouldn’t we be getting outraged/overjoyed by the whole MT/Orange deal? or is it that the internet connection will still be crap?

And i entirely agree, all who does CSE or IS have no rights to call themselves Engineers ..:p as i believe that are not ‘pure blooded’ race of engineering practice :p, and too much of people who have monetary power have modified the true engineering aspects of anything related to computer software…

..basically :p even ’software engineers’ are just a lie. The way software engineering (or anything software) currently seems to look (atleast for me) is like “cooking”, everyone can cook, everyone can follow some cooking instructions in a magazine to cook something, everyone can follow a cooking course and claim to be a ‘chef’, BUT one cannot really qualify or predict how and who the next someone that will “invent” the next killer recipes out there, it just seems (to me) random or something that probably till we can learn to understand what makes a cook a cook that we can form real cooks instead of “pseudo cooks” with certificates.

the above is just my opinion … and as always :p i don’t give a damned if many disagree :p am free to have opinions :p.

ps. Even real “pure blood line” engineering practices nowadays seems to have been reduced to canned stuffs rather than philosophical. They are not taught to invent.. but to copy.

Previously it was a 4-year BEng but, for some reason, this duration was reduced.

The students are lab rats, feel free to do anything to them :p, am sure one day one of those students will turn into a serial killer and correct back everything! hahahahaha.

Thank god i am soon going to be reaching my enjoyment state after this exam :p yuuuuhuuu next year i’m dropping in univ only for the fun :p

+$3|v3n

Of course, I remember you How’s life?

Our students follow a 3-year BSc (Hons) programme. Previously it was a 4-year BEng but, for some reason, this duration was reduced.

A nice blog you have here.
Was wondering after reading your last comment, what do Computer Science & Engineering students graduate with from UoM, a BSc or BEng.?

Keep the posts coming.
Regards,
Ritesh.

PS:I’m not sure if you remember me, we’ve met a few times at the Nagawa’s in QBornes.

This is what I did.

There, during the five years, I learned (and practiced) about (i) the technical aspect (ii) the human aspect and (iii) the financial aspect of building large software artifacts.

In Mauritius, things are a little bit different. Our students, even though they are holders of a Bachelor degree in Computer Science & Engineering, do not have the right to call them engineers. This is because the Association of Engineers of Mauritius does not consider Computer Science to be an engineering discipline.

So asking for Software Engineers is valid technically. But I don’t think this is really applied as this would mean that no CSE students would have the right to apply…

Personally, on my CV, I put Software Engineer as “title”. But this is only because I’ve studied in an Ecole d’Ingénieur.

It was the quote above me that triggered my curiosity to know the differences. Yeps, I definitely agree on the SD best practices. In fact I read this guide: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000103.html very often.

finally, I think that the industry requires software engineers rather than developer or programmers. for eg. at SIL, http://sil.intnet.mu/hr/career.htm, it is mentioned Software engineer as position. How far is it true?

Most people find programming tough as we are not used to interact with stupid entities

Honestly, with the sort of people around, there is no shortage of stupid entities to interact with. I think, a computer is not stupid. It is just an electrical device. you are not likely to call your fridge stupid. Even though from an average point of view, your fridge is much more useful. It feeds you (indirectly, by preserving your food). The computer doesn’t do much by itself. It does with numbers (to base 2) what you tell it to do and represent those numbers the way you (or some programmer) tells it to do. So it is a modelling tool. like a pencil and paper. So I think you need some amount of artistic skill as well to write useful code.

but of course, it’s not that simple in reality. Or whatever you consider to be reality.

From Wikipedia, “Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.”

I remember reading that definition a long time ago and not liking it at all either.