by Narada Rathnasooriya 4:48 AM 0 comments

8.02. Improve their ability to create safe, reliable, and useful quality software at reasonable cost and within a reasonable time.

The 8th Principle of the ACM Software Engineering code of ethics is promotes the self learning ability of the Software Engineer. It says that Software engineers shall participate in lifelong learning regarding the practice of their profession and shall promote an ethical approach to the practice of the profession.

This 8th principle is one that heavily emphasizes the improvements that Software Engineers should make both professionally and ethically. It addresses the long term behavior of a Software Engineer. Software Engineers should always be up to date because the IT industry is one of the most dynamic fields.

A Software Engineer should always try to update his knowledge and to improve his/her skills. It is an essential quality that a software engineer should have. Otherwise it is really hard for a software engineer to survive in the IT field. According to the the sub closure 8.02 of ACM Software Engineers Code of Ethics it says that the self should always improve their ability to create safe,reliable, and useful quality software at reasonable cost and within a reasonable time.

This point is a one that we can emphasize a lot in projects as it helps the software engineers to create more reliable software to the customer as well as give customer satisfaction as well. In our project also we ensured that we always create a reliable web site using the past experiences we had. This is what this closure is all about. Learning from your previous experiences. While you are developing software you get the experience of what is best and what should be avoided. This knowledge can later be applied in to the development of other developments which we used in this scenario.

For an example in a web site we created earlier we used a module that was faulty. But we fixed the module and used it in the site and it worked fine. But during this development we were able to find a more advanced and a reliable module that was also freely available. The lessons learnt from earlier helped us to improve the reliability and safe of the current project. This learning curve of software engineers would never end. As technology evolves he/she should always try to improve themselves with the latest technology and trends. But they should adapt in to these trends only if they make the work that you are doing more reliable and safe.