Would You Buy A Used Program From This Man?

Professional standards and methods have been adopted in most engineering disciplines to protect the public health, safety, and welfare. In recent years, software engineering has taken center stage as it strives to attain a level of professionalization on par with its more established engineering siblings.
This year nearly 8 billion microprocessors will be shipped, but a mere 2% of them will be in PCs. In other words, computers – and the software that runs on them – are disappearing into the fabric of our everyday lives. The ubiquity of computers in our lives underscores the importance of public safety issues in the push to accredit software professionals. 
But how should software professionals be accredited, by licensing or certification? Licensing is a legal means for governments to regulate accountability, while certification is granted by professional bodies to recognize a level of experience or education. In either case, accreditation is typically relative to an accepted body of knowledge (BOK). 
A Software Engineering Body Of Knowledge (SWEBOK) has recently been proposed as a basis for professional accreditation in software engineering (www.swebok.org). The accreditation controversy also extends to the academic programs responsible for transferring this knowledge base to future software professionals. 
Have we captured this body of knowledge yet?  When asked how SWEBOK would affect SE curriculums, David Parnas commented during Tuesday’s panel, “We need a core body of knowledge. SWEBOK took that idea, but they left out ‘core’.” What do you think?
The foregoing issues are of topical interest at ICSE 2001, so come see what all the fuss is about! Piers 7 & 8 feature three sessions today related to accreditation. Session S6 addresses practical software engineering education at 10:30 am; session S14 covers degree programs for software engineering at 2:00 pm; and session S18 is a panel discussion about the aims of SWEBOK at 4:00 pm.

Scott M. Pike and Mike Godfrey