After the Gold Rush: Establishing a True Profession of Software Engineering

Award-winning author Steve McConnell offers candid reflections upon the state of software development today and a critical look at the work needed to turn software engineering into a true profession. This talk highlights key trends and calls for a more rigorous and standards-based profession. The ideas presented in this talk will help software developers step back from the day-to-day rush of their work and think about where their careers and the industry are heading. Bio Steve McConnel1 is Chief Software Engineer at Construx Software. In 1998, readers of Software Development named Steve one of the three most influential people in the software industry, along with Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds. His first two books (Code Complete and Rapid Development) won Software Development magazine's Jolt Excellence award for outstanding software development books of their respective years. McConnel1 has also written numerous technical articles and volunteers as Editor in Chief of IEEE Software magazine. His most recent book is After the Gold Rush: Creating a True Profession of Software Engineering. He can be reached at [email protected]. Proceedings of the 14th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEET’01) 1093-0175 $10.00 © 2001 IEEE