What knowledge is important to a software professional?

Software engineering licensing bodies, universities designing curricula, and companies focusing on better training for their staff are all pursuing efforts to define the subject matter that software professionals should know. Whereas most of these groups are basing their decisions on expert opinions in the field, the author, part of a survey group at the University of Ottawa, was more interested in learning what subject matter practitioners themselves actually find most important in their work. From May to October 1998, this survey group at the University of Ottawa queried software professionals to learn which educational topics have proved most important to them in their careers and to identify the topics for which their education or current knowledge could be improved. They used the responses to the'S questions in the survey to develop three sets of data: in detail, estimating how the importance of various topics taught in computer science exploring what constitutes ence, software engineering, and computer engineering curricula; the emphasis educational institutions place on these topics; and what practitioners believe they currently know about the topics.