Software Engineering: Moving From Craft to Profession

Richard  Fairley
OGI School of Science and Engineering

There have been many debates about whether software engineering is “real” engineering and whether software development is an art, a science, or an engineering discipline. In reality, software engineering, as practiced in most organizations, is more similar to craftsmanship than to art, science, or the traditional engineering disciplines. However, recent developments are providing the foundations necessary to move software engineering toward professional engineering status.

A profession is characterized by several attributes: a recognized body of knowledge, accredited education programs, a code of ethics, an impartial professional society, archival publications, and an objective certification procedure. In this talk, we will briefly review the evolution of software engineering and discuss activities currently underway to make software engineering a recognized engineering discipline. The presentation will include a discussion of the recently approved IEEE program for Certification of Software Development Professionals (CSDP).

Speaker Bio
Richard E. (Dick) Fairley is a professor and associate chair for education in the Department of Computer Science at the OGI School of Science and Engineering, OHSU. He is also a participating faculty member in the Oregon Master of Software Engineering degree program, a collaborative effort among four major universities in Oregon. Dr. Fairley has Bachelors and Masters degrees in electrical engineering and a PhD in computer science. Prior to obtaining his PhD, Dr. Fairley worked in industry as an engineer and as a computer programmer.



This lecture is sponsored by