Software Engineering: An Oxymoron?

Software Engineering is often regarded as an oxymoron by those of us with any experience in this industry. Craft? Sure. But Engineering? Not!

Glenn Vanderburg has a great story to tell:

This is a brilliant and surprising talk, and it's not going to go away. Glenn visited our large and popular JavaMUG user's group to present this talk for it's 5th time, and it has every hallmark of an industry changing presentation. This could even grow to be a book on par with the infamous Mythical Man Month. My opinion only.

You'll be surprised if you get a chance to catch this talk on the speaker circuit. You also might find yourself standing around like we did after it's over, full of ideas and stories and wanting to talk to Glenn about them - this is a fertile area.

Software development CAN be Engineering:

Glenn takes the history of software development apart in some very interesting and revealing twists. He not only covers the historical practices of software as they relate to engineering, but he exposes the primary differences that make software appear to defeat the definitions and practices of good engineering. You may feel a bit stunned, I did.

Software engineering is real. Agile is the ultimate feedback engine, and Glenn covers every major breaking point and how prototypical agile practices fit the exact definition of effective engineering from all it's archetypal definitions.

You can see his presentation online at 

http://confreaks.net/videos/282-lsrc2010-real-software-engineering

You won't be disappointed.