[Discuss] Software Engineering redux

[dcrookston at gmail.com (Daniel C.)]

So, we all accept that the title Professional Engineer (the one with
the specific legal meaning - not the lowercase engineering that we all
do every time we write a program) does not apply to what we as
software developers do.  (It would be difficult to argue with this
since there is no Professional Software Engineer certification with
the NSPE - the National Society of Professional Engineers.)
Regardless, we already have a thread for arguing semantics; I'm not
interested in getting into it here.

What I am curious about is what a standard in software engineering
would look like, if it were to be established with the NSPE.  Any such
standard would have to be revised and updated over time, but we
(meaning human beings in general) already have several computer
programs on which human lives depend daily.  The one that I always
think of first (because of my background in the area) is avionics
systems in aircraft and the software in air traffic control towers.
We might eventually want to take a look at the process used to develop
these systems and think about whether those practices could be
generalized to other areas of software development.

On a more general level, what would the goals of such a standard be?
Obviously "writing programs that don't kill people" is one of them,
but what else?

I'm not advocating that anyone actually create such a standard.  I
agree that the software industry is too young.  I'm just curious what
such a standard might look like, and whether it's even possible to
have one among software developers.  It might not be - or rather, it
might require that a Professional Software Engineer forego the use of
cutting edge technologies in favor of the tried and true.  (This might
not be a Bad Thing.)

Incidentally, Alan Kay has made some pretty scathing remarks about the
state of the computer science industry - especially in comparison to
capital-E Engineering.  I've got to run in a few minutes or I'd dig
them up - a quick Google should turn them up for you, though.

-Dan