Art or Engineering, One More Time

Debates about whether software development is an engineering discipline or an art have persisted for many years. The custom home construction involves application of both engineering and artistic knowledge. Similarly, at the initial stage of software development, visionaries generally gather and document the gleaned information into words, without regard to what the software might look like. Next, software designers create a software architecture showing the subcomponents and how they interrelate temporally and physically. Then, more detailed designs are created: algorithms, data structures, interfaces, protocols, flows. This step requires intimate knowledge of data structures, algorithms, system performance, and development standards. Hence, there is a need to recognize that different skills are required for each activity that comprises software development. As the discipline matures, one should become more user-oriented during requirements, more creative during design, and more attentive to detail during coding.