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74
NATO SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CONFERENCE 1968
7. Special Topics
6. What curriculum do we have in mind for software engineers, regardless of what level we choose to educate them?
7. Is software engineering really different from what we now call systems engineering?
We should answer these questions before we start giving recommendations, e.g., in the US to the National Science Foundation, that large sums be spent on such education programs.
David: May I add another question:
8. What does software engineering and computing engineering have in common with engineering education as it is defined in the United States today, or in Western Europe?
It does seem that computing engineering and software engineering, as they exist, are outside of the classical engineering education area.
Perlis: There is in the United Stated a committee called COSINE, Computer Science in Engineering Education. Their view of education of engineers in computers is primarily the view of users of computers, but not that there should be a branch of engineering having as its goal the training of a new class of engineers.
David: However, there is nothing in what they have said that would preclude a branch of engineering education concerned particularly with computing as such. We should ask ourselves seriously whether that would not be a good thing. Certainly Richard Hamming has stated that the essence of computing today is an engineering viewpoint. It certainly is not mathematics in the classical sense. In order to find colleagues who have a philosophy which may contribute to our own enterprises, engineering is a much more fruitful area than would be one of the sciences or mathematics, at least in my opinion. Incidentally, I think that a lot of engineering education in the United States is stuck in the mud.
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Software engineering and computing engineering have an extremely important and nice aspect to them, namely that people want to work on things that meet other people’s needs. They are not interested in working on abstractions entirely, they want to have an impact on the world. This is the real strength of computing today, and it is the essence of engineering.
Ross: I agree very strongly that our field is in the engineering domain, for the reason that our main purpose is to do something for somebody. To Perlis: my answers to your questions are: no; no; BA; yes; yes; question mark; yes.
Randell: I am worried about the term ‘software engineering’. I would prefer a name indicating a wider scope, for instance ‘data systems engineering’.
Dijkstra: We, in the Netherlands, have the title Mathematical Engineer. Software engineering seems to be the activity for the Mathematical Engineer par excellence. This seems to fit perfectly. On the one hand, we have all the aspects of an engineering activity, in that you are making something and want to see that it really works. On the other hand, our basic tools are mathematical in nature.
I want to add another question or remark to your list. You are right in saying that lots of systems really work, these are our glimmer of hope. But there is a profound difference between observing that apparently some people are able to do something, and being able to teach that ability.
Wodon: There are many places in Europe where there is no education either in hardware or in software. This conference should drive home the point that this is ridiculous.
Hume: In University of Toronto we have a graduate department of Computer Science. We also have some bachelor degrees in Computer Science, one of which is the engineering stream in a course called Engineering Science, presumably something like mathematical engineering. In this stream there is the opportunity to choose graduate work, even in the department of electrical engineering, which has set itself up as a specialist in software. The people in this department have written compilers themselves.
What really worries me about software engineering is, do universities have to engage in large software projects in order to remain experts in  the field of software engineering? Do they have to hire people who have