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Software and engineering

To me, engineering is a discipline responsible for creating "systems that work": machinery which achieves a desired result, using scientifically valid foundations. In this sense, software development is an engineering process just as much as creating a bridge or an oil refinery.

There are some types of software - DSP for example - where the math is essential and reasonably "advanced". There are others, especially applications constructed from reusable components, which can be built effectively without needing much theoretical depth. But don't imagine that the theoretical foundation is irrelevant; if you want to implement a database system, or a compiler, or a concurrent system, from low-level parts then you really need to be aware of the decades of specialized research in those areas. The math and the models are different from physical systems, but no less important.

Two good (old) examples:
http://www.acm.org/classics/nov95/toc.html
http://library.readscheme.org/servlets/cite.ss?pattern=Ste-76a

All "real" software engineers need to know this stuff. Just like other forms of engineering, the final test is a reality check: does it work?

Audio is like software. Most of the "real engineers" in this business work at the building-block vendors, creating ASRCs or DACs or opamps or whatever - where the math is very important - and their work enables others to build systems without worrying about some of the theoretical detail. Like software, it's possible to create small and simple things too (SET amps, for example); but even there, if you don't know the physics (of transformers, impedance and phase, the Miller effect, and so on) you'll go far astray. Like software, the ideal result is an illusion which "works".

So can we get off the ad-hominem accreditation-bashing, please, and just assume everyone here wants to look for novel and interesting and effective ways to create more convincing illusions?

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