Which specific practices could be called "software craftsmanship" rather than "software engineering"?
- by FinnNk
Although not a new idea there seems to have been a big increase in the interest in software craftsmanship over the last couple of years (notably the often recommended book Clean Code's full title is Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship).
Personally I see software craftsmanship as good software engineering with an added interest in ensuring that the end result is a joy to work with (both as an end user and as someone maintaining that software) - and also that its focus is more at the coding level of things than the higher level process things.
To draw an analogy - there were lots of buildings constructed in the 50s and 60s in a very modern style which took very little account of the people who would be living in them or how those buildings would age over time. Many of those buildings rapidly developed into slums or have been demolished long before their expected lifespans. I'm sure most developers with a few years under their belts will have experienced similar codebases.
What are the specific things that a software craftsman might do that a software engineer (possibly a bad one) might not?
