So I'm about to get my masters in CS and start out (again) in the "real world", I already have a job lined up, but there is one thing that is really nagging me. Since my academic work has focused almost solely on computer science and not software engineering per se, I'm really still a "hacker", meaning I take a problem, sketch together a rough solution using the appropriate Computer Science algorithms, and then code something up(using a lot of prints to debug), do some basic testing and go with it.... Obviously something that works quite well in the academic environment but not in the "real world" obviously. Even at my previous job, which was sort of a jack-of-all-trades(sysadmin, security, support, and programming) the testing procedures were not particularly rigorous and as a result I don't think I'm really mature as an "engineer"
So my question to the community is how do you make the transition from hacker(in the positive sense) to a real engineer. Obviously the "Mythical Man Month" on the reading list, but anything else? How do you get out of the "hacker" mindset?
Thanks
So my question to the community is how do you make the transition from hacker(in the positive sense) to a real engineer. Obviously the "Mythical Man Month" on the reading list, but anything else? How do you get out of the "hacker" mindset?
Thanks