Page "Computer programming" Paragraph 2

There is an ongoing debate on the extent to which the writing of programs is an art form, a craft or an engineering discipline.

In general, good programming is considered to be the measured application of all three, with the goal of producing an efficient and evolvable software solution ( the criteria for " efficient " and " evolvable " vary considerably ).

The discipline differs from many other technical professions in that programmers, in general, do not need to be licensed or pass any standardized ( or governmentally regulated ) certification tests in order to call themselves " programmers " or even " software engineers.

" Because the discipline covers many areas, which may or may not include critical applications, it is debatable whether licensing is required for the profession as a whole.

In most cases, the discipline is self-governed by the entities which require the programming, and sometimes very strict environments are defined ( e. g. United States Air Force use of AdaCore and security clearance ).

However, representing oneself as a " Professional Software Engineer " without a license from an accredited institution is illegal in many parts of the world.