Software Engineering Is Becoming Civil Engineering

After my guest lecture on AI in Michael Hilton’s Foundations of Software Engineering course (CMU 17-313) today, a conversation started that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about: software engineering is going through the same transition that building went through in the 18th century — when structural design separated from craft construction and became its own discipline, what we now call civil engineering. The welders who join steel beams on a bridge are skilled tradespeople. They’re no...