Software is Literature
5 minute read. Originally an aerospace engineer, I've been a software engineer now for about half my career, but it doesn't quite feel like engineering to me. I don't want to start an argument on the definitions of terms, but hear me out, I think there are some interesting differences. I remember first thinking it was odd that at my university, the Computer Science department was not in the College of Engineering, but in the College of Arts & Sciences. Sure, "science" is right there in the name, but the practitioners are generally known as software engineers, and certainly they ran in the same circles as the rest of us engineers. However, while the civil, mechanical, aerospace, electrical, and chemical engineers were required to fill our time with math, physics, and mechanics, the software engineers had to take humanities and social science electives just like the comparative literature majors. I also remember when my career first turned from aerospace - I j...