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klopyrev




PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 12:15 pm   Post subject: Software Engineering

I finally got my offer for Software Engineering a couple of days ago. I'm planning to accept it as soon as OUAC receives the information. Is anybody else on this forum planning to attend Software Engineering next year? It'll be nice to get to know each other before next year? If you're going to Software Engineering, say a couple of words about yourself and such.

I'm Konstantin. I'm currently a student of Richmond Hill High School and I have a passion for Computer Science. I have been programming ever since I was very small and my whole family is in Computer Science. I'm taking Software Engineering, because it is dedicated largely to computer science, but it also teaches you how to create software, because there is not a lot of money in pure Computer Science (or at least its easier to create software, than invent new concepts that sell for millions of dollars). At least that's my view of it.

KL
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wtd




PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 2:36 pm   Post subject: RE:Software Engineering

Just don't drink the kool-aid and you'll be fine.
Naveg




PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 8:06 pm   Post subject: RE:Software Engineering

At Waterloo I'm assuming?

I'll be in Mechatronics (sorry Tony Wink) come September. See you then!
Skynet




PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 8:40 pm   Post subject: Re: RE:Software Engineering

Naveg @ Sat May 12, 2007 8:06 pm wrote:
At Waterloo I'm assuming?

I'll be in Mechatronics (sorry Tony Wink) come September. See you then!


Excellent. The few, the proud, the Trons.
Tony




PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 12:55 pm   Post subject: Re: RE:Software Engineering

klopyrev @ Sat May 12, 2007 12:15 pm wrote:
there is not a lot of money in pure Computer Science (or at least its easier to create software, than invent new concepts that sell for millions of dollars).

I always thought that picking out the program to pursue based on the perception of monetary gain is the wrong way to go... though it sounds like there's quite a bit of programming background involved anyways. Good luck.

Naveg @ Sat May 12, 2007 8:06 pm wrote:
I'll be in Mechatronics (sorry Tony Wink) come September.

Haha, I hope you know what you're doing Wink It's good to see you guys in UW anyways Very Happy
Latest from compsci.ca/blog: Tony's programming blog. DWITE - a programming contest.
Andy




PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 3:30 pm   Post subject: Re: Software Engineering

klopyrev @ Sat May 12, 2007 10:15 am wrote:
because there is not a lot of money in pure Computer Science (or at least its easier to create software, than invent new concepts that sell for millions of dollars).


I'd beg to differ. Any Competent CS grad can get SE jobs, but often SE grads don't have alot of CS background to go into research. CS is the more flexible choice.
cool dude




PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2007 4:37 pm   Post subject: Re: Software Engineering

I sure hope your right Andy! because i am going for CS at York university next year. Waterloo is where i'm hoping to do my masters Smile
rizzix




PostPosted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 3:51 pm   Post subject: RE:Software Engineering

If you want to develop critical software, you HAVE to be a Software Engineer.

And take my word, developing critical sofware is one boring task, specially if you are invovled in the design phase. (and you usually are)
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Andy




PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:03 am   Post subject: RE:Software Engineering

bullshit. No body from my team at Google did a degree in Software Engineering. And trust me, we ARE developing critical software.

Your degree does not teach you how to do your job, it teaches you how to learn to do your job.
wtd




PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 3:38 am   Post subject: RE:Software Engineering

The single most important thing any CS degree will give you going into the job market is a grasp on the basic vocabulary.

Assuming you learn that vocabulary.
Ultrahex




PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:49 am   Post subject: Re: Software Engineering

too bad software engineers don't know whats going on, look at ATI, all their drivers have gone to shit, and nothing is left of them. Really ATI needs to hire some people instead of the miserable failures that are in their company, and now they are saying they are full of the people they need what the hell is this, are they that stupid!?!

Has anyone used their drivers latetly, wow they are soooo terrible, keep crashing my PC latetly especially the newer ones!
Andy




PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 4:58 pm   Post subject: Re: Software Engineering

From what I heard, ever since AMD acquired ATI, their management system went down the drain. When I worked there last year, their drivers were performing quite well.
rizzix




PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:26 pm   Post subject: Re: RE:Software Engineering

Andy @ Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:03 am wrote:
bullshit. No body from my team at Google did a degree in Software Engineering. And trust me, we ARE developing critical software.

Your degree does not teach you how to do your job, it teaches you how to learn to do your job.


LOL, Google does not develop critical software. I say this based on the products google has released to the public. None of them are critical software. If google does develop critical software, what is it? Something top secret that none of us can see?

Neither is ATI nor nVidia in the business of developing critical software. (Not that you have to employ software engineers only for critical software, but I just wanted to state a fact here.. Software engineers can also be trained in embedded systems, among other things)

Critical software is a completely different thing. You cannot just be a software engineer developing "critical software". You have to be specialized at something. For example you can be a software engineer specialized in developing safety critical software for pharmaceutical companies. In this case you would have to study a bit of chem and bio, thoroughly understand the hazards involved, etc,.. the list goes on. You would also be working under a company that guarantees the software developed to work. Which means you guys would have tried and tested and designed a complete system taking into account an extremely large number of runtime cases. (google most cretainly does not guarantee any of its software.. in the same breath neither does microsoft or apple either.. such software cannot be considered CRITICAL under any circumstances). I think IBM develops critical software for businesses (cost critical and mission critical possibly) under a contract basis, but I'm not too sure. NASA for sure does, but then again I don't think they develop software for anyone but themselves.

Now-a-days almost no commercial software development company bothers to develop critical software, largely because guaranteeing their software to work is a huuge risk, and almost impossible to ensure. What they tend to do, is provide on-the-spot technical assistance instead, and provide immediate fixes when necessary. Such software is not considered critical! Nonetheless there are companies that do develop critical software. They are just not heard of in the common-consumer market.
Skynet




PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:08 pm   Post subject: Re: Software Engineering

^ Damn, he beat me to it. The growing need for "critical software" is one of the reasons behind the development of the software engineering degree.

Just so things are clear:
Ontario Professional Engineers Act wrote:
“practice of professional engineering” means any act of designing, composing, evaluating, advising, reporting, directing or supervising wherein the safeguarding of life, health, property or the public welfare is concerned and that requires the application of engineering principles, but does not include practising as a natural scientist;

Note the "safeguarding of life, property, etc", also the "not include practising as a natural scientist." This does not imply that software engineering is better than CS, only different in its aims. A SE isn't just someone who knows how to lay out and implement a large scale project, they're the people who are trained from the moment they set foot in university that things like this need to be avoided. True, one can interpret "engineering" in a few different ways, but the "Engineering" referred to in the SE degree includes the duty to the public.

Speaking as someone being trained to develop similar systems and who has worked in automation & controls for all of my work terms, one develops a different mindset to programming once system crashes become more literal than most people would like. Though it doesn't seem like much, the approach of an engineer is fundamentally different to that of a computer scientist. We (engineering students) care less about theory and derivations, true. We devote more time to the understanding of the entire system, so that this doesn't happen too often.

Of course, the CSers out there can learn this mindset, just as I can learn epsilon-delta proofs. The difference is is that when an engineer gets his ring and takes his oath, he'll already have spent five years with this mindset being thrown at him, and it'll be just as much a part of his design approach as F=ma or "free energy doesn't exist".

A few examples of critical software, for any prospective software engineers:
QNX
Rockwell Automation Safety PLCs
Canadarm
TRIUMF
Hydro One Distribution
Boeing 787
Andy




PostPosted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:04 pm   Post subject: RE:Software Engineering

Um, incase you haven't noticed, Google is more of a business company than technology.

Google owns over 40% of the internet advertising market, and the number of sales reps are in the same scale as that of the engineers.

The software released to the public may not be critical, but the financial backends definitely are. In fact Google has better security for the customer's personal informations than most banks.
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