[waynecolvin]

True. But before the days of Structured Programming widespread understanding of algorithms was hoped to lead to a professional Software Engineering field.

The idea of "Software Engineering" was born with the Software Crisis report in the 1960's.

Later on practicing SE's would study things like Design Patterns so things evolved over time.

EDIT: Software Engineers probably should know some relevant basics, but programmers could never come up with a "body of knowledge" like real engineers have.

It all depends what you work on and what new developments keep coming out...