Classics in software engineering

What Hacker News says

1. ColinWrightJul 2013
   An old friend, so many postings, so little discussion. Given the usual high standard of discussion here on HN, it's a shame that there's been so little about this popular submission. FWIW, I've upvoted this, because I really do want to see a balanced discussion about it from an up-to-date viewpoint.

   It was the Turing Award Lecture in 1972 - it's over 40 years old. Printed in "Classics in Software Engineering" by Yourdon Press, 1979, ISBN 0917072146.

   HTML: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340....

   PDF: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd03xx/EWD340.PDF

   Here are some of the previous submissions here on HN:

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=86288

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=109724

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126638

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135111

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=156505

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=449806

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1179277

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1649246

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1672262

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1799296 <- 3 comments

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1894784 <- 8 comments

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2011732

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3060828

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5035560

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5266220

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6112467 (This item)

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2. mjnJul 2013
   > Printed in "Classics in Software Engineering" by Yourdon Press, 1979

   It's interesting how terminology has changed. In the 1970s you might have been able to say that Dijkstra was part of a field called "software engineering", in that he was writing about methodology for developing software. But in the 1980s it became a fairly different field, focused more on how to develop effective processes for large-scale development (modeling, testing, code review, team structure, tooling, etc.). By 1988 Dijkstra was vehemently against that version of software engineering.

   Here's his article on that subject: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036...

   A number of these phenomena have been bundled under the name "Software Engineering". As economics is known as "The Miserable Science", software engineering should be known as "The Doomed Discipline", doomed because it cannot even approach its goal since its goal is self-contradictory. Software engineering, of course, presents itself as another worthy cause, but that is eyewash: if you carefully read its literature and analyse what its devotees actually do, you will discover that software engineering has accepted as its charter "How to program if you cannot.".

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3. ColinWrightOct 2011
   An old friend.

   It was the Turing Award Lecture in 1972. Printed in "Classics in Software Engineering" by Yourdon Press, 1979, ISBN 0917072146

   Here are some of the previous submissions here on HN:

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=86288

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=109724

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126638

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135111

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=156505

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=449806

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1179277

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1649246

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1672262

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1799296

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1894784

   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2011732

   So many postings, so little discussion.

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