Software engineering in the academy

Institutions that teach software are responsible for producing professionals who will build and maintain systems to the satisfaction of their beneficiaries. The article presents some ideas on how best to honor this responsibility. It presents five goals of a curriculum: principles: lasting concepts that underlie the whole field; practices: problem-solving techniques that good professionals apply consciously and regularly; applications: areas of expertise in which the principles and practices find their best expression; tools: state-of-the-art products that facilitate the application of these principles and practices; mathematics: the formal basis that makes it possible to understand everything else.