Conjecture: the fundamental distinction between software engineering and other engineering disciplines is the lack of DEs.
Though calculus plays a role in information theory (and of course in some application domains such as computational fluid dynamics and machine learning).
Software engineering is more like a trade or craft, except that it's new and still evolving.
Software engineering seems like it might, eventually, become actual engineering when it matures a bit. Most other forms of engineering have had centuries or even longer to figure things out.
In software, we started with a programmable loom, stagnated for a few centuries, then all at once had tools and systems too complex to understand all of their implications.
It would be like taking apothecaries from the 1700s and putting them in the middle of a massive industrial chemical plant and hoping they make useful things that don't break easily or have design flaws.
Comments
Conjecture: the fundamental distinction between software engineering and other engineering disciplines is the lack of DEs.
Though calculus plays a role in information theory (and of course in some application domains such as computational fluid dynamics and machine learning).
Software engineering is more like a trade or craft, except that it's new and still evolving.
Software engineering seems like it might, eventually, become actual engineering when it matures a bit. Most other forms of engineering have had centuries or even longer to figure things out.
In software, we started with a programmable loom, stagnated for a few centuries, then all at once had tools and systems too complex to understand all of their implications.
It would be like taking apothecaries from the 1700s and putting them in the middle of a massive industrial chemical plant and hoping they make useful things that don't break easily or have design flaws.