Specialising in Software Engineering

Abstract

The established branches of engineering are characterised by a focus on the physical world and by intense specializations. These practices are already found in some areas of software engineering, but a wider and fuller adoption could be beneficial. In particular, specialisation could help in dealing with a major challenge of software engineering - with the non-formal and heterogeneous nature of the physical problem world. The interplay between the quasi-formal computing machine and the non-formal problem world has many very different manifestations, each one demanding and meriting the attention of computer scientists no less than of software engineering practitioners.