November 2025
Beginner
404 pages
10h 38m
English
Content preview from Fundamentals of Software Engineering
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 1. Programmer to Engineer
Foundational skills, always tedious to learn, seem to be obsolete. And they might be, if there was a shortcut to being an expert. But the path to expertise requires a grounding in facts.
Ethan Mollick, from Co-Intelligence (Portfolio, 2024)
Being a software engineer requires a vast array of skills across a variety of areas. Understanding what your customer is actually asking for. Translating those needs into maintainable code. Writing tests to ensure that the software does what you think it should do. Creating user interfaces that work. Architecture. Working with data. Getting code to production. If you want to grow your career as a software practitioner, you must focus on more than just writing code. You must embrace the entire craft of engineering software.
To get from programmer to engineer, you need to master the fundamental skills across the software development lifecycle (SDLC), work smart, acknowledge the things you don’t know, and figure out how to close the gaps on those things. In this chapter, you’ll get some tips and advice to get you started. You’ll learn about the various paths to becoming an engineer as well as the key knowledge those approaches often omit. Ultimately, this chapter will give you hard-earned advice that will help you on your journey, smoothing the road from programmer to engineer.
But first, let’s talk about what it means to be a software engineer.
An Engineer by Any Other Name
Software is filled with overloaded ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.