Putting the Engineering into Software Engineering

By now, we all have come to understand that software is not just another coat of paint on computer science, nor another fancy designation for programming. But are we sure to put enough of the engineering into software engineering? Our literature abounds with wonderful analogies to civil engineering, chemical engineering, and our jargon borrows many terms from the perspective of the non-software engineer, but there are some fundamental differences in the nature of our object. Software, that makes it not too easy in practice. Development lifecycle, reasoning, fluidity of subject matter--all are very different in the world of buts from the world of atoms. Quality, standards, and ethics all are affected. So is the education of the software engineer. If a pure computer science curriculum will not get it, a pure curriculum has some hurdles too.