The art, science, and engineering of software development

  • Authors:
  • S. McConnell

  • Affiliations:
  • Construx Software Builders, USA

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Software
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

What is the best way to think of software development? Is it science, art or craft? Is it something else entirely? People who advocate programming as art point to the aesthetic aspects of software development and argue that science does not allow for such inspiration and creative freedom. People who advocate programming as science point to many programs' high error rates and argue that such low reliability is intolerable. The author discusses software development as an engineering discipline