|
|
|
|
|
|
by goalieca
2991 days ago
|
|
|
> software engineers I've had the idea for a while that most of us practice software development rather than software engineering. I have a degree in computer engineering but i consider myself software developer now rather than a software engineer. The reason, I don't practice engineering in the legal and professional sense. In engineering school we learn about engineering as a formal process and professional responsibility. Both of these things are largely absent in most shops now. I get that not all projects need to be professionally engineered with all the costs and timelines associated with it. I think this is why agile came along. Sometimes it's just good enough to hack something together and demo it until a manager says it's time to release. But there are many other projects which are extremely important to society and should follow more traditional engineering practices. There shall be external and internal engineers who must formally approve any product before release. There shall be specific and testable formal requirements. There shall be a formal design and documentation for engineers to review and people to develop from. etc. etc. |
|
|
There's no clear demarcation between devising a convenient contraption, versus implementing an inadvisable hack that leads to a hazardous outcome, especially within the scope of web based systems, since no portion of the internet is to be regarded as reliable life-saving infrastructure.
I think the mistake is to trust packet-switched networks and peer-oriented protocols as reliable systems at all.
If you cannot control the whole system, end-to-end, and any unwitting peer can over-consume bandwidth (jamming traffic and communication with interference), effectively cutting you off from a necessity, why would you bet your life on the availability of that system?