A long and winding road (Progress on the road to a software engineering profession)

An evaluation of the current state of developments in the field of software engineering (SE) professionalism is presented including the effect of ACM withdrawing from the IEEE-CS/ACM Software Engineering Coordinating Committee (SWECC). An examination is made of two of the projects initiated by SWECC: that defining the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice and that providing a Guide to a Software Engineering Body of Knowledge. The successes and problems associated with each are highlighted. Details are presented of a project supported by the International Federation of Information Processing, concerned with the harmonisation of professional standards, which could now be very relevant to re-establishing progress on the road to a SE profession. Efforts undertaken to promote this work to the SE community are also reported. Finally overall conclusions and recommendations are given that could improve the situation in the future.