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Software Art Thou: Glenn Vanderburg - Real Software Engineering

Zendesk · talk · Watch on YouTube

Software practice, open source & careersSoftware architecture & design

What it is

Glenn Vanderburg asks whether software development can be real engineering, surveying other engineering disciplines and decades of programming experience. He envisions what a software engineering worthy of the name might look like.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it in debates about software engineering rigor, agile, and formal methods.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “he explores the question of whether "software engineering" is or can really be engineering.”

    Explores whether software engineering is really engineering

    kmstout, 2020-02 · Recommendation · in “Why are we so bad at software engineering?”

  2. “Saw an interesting talk just about this topic”

    Argues software's low cost of change justifies different methods

    modal-soul, 2020-05 · Recommendation · in “Old box, dumb code, few thousand connections, no big deal”

  3. “Bonus watching material”

    Suggested as extra viewing

    ozim, 2026-06 · Recommendation · in “My 1992 view of the problems of computer programming in 1992”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: software engineering, agile, engineering disciplines, cost of change, glenn vanderburg

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