Software - Tradecraft or Science

Talking with one of my good friends in software development the other day I stumbled upon the question?  

Developing software, is it a tradecraft or is it a science?

The question came up while talking about the skills of various people where we used to work.  We had all kinds, people with masters degrees in software engineering, others with a bachelors degree in computer science.  Some didn't have a degree in software at all; such as my friend whose degree was in music.

What was interesting to note here is that degree should have indicated skill, if we were a pure science.  "I have studied more complicated theories then you and thus I am superior."  However, some of our most accomplished employees were some of our worse.  People with masters degrees and multiple classes in databases came up with some of our worst database designs.  Duplicated information in tables that should have been in a lookup table, using MyISM on a table that should have had foreign keys, the list of tragedies (in my opinion) go on.  Now I'm not an advocate for one normal form over another.  Going all the way out to fourth normal form can sometimes be extreme and a good software engineer should balance all aspects when building a program.  Its this thinking that started the wheels turning; software development or engineering has elements of a tradecraft.

In the sense that it's a trade, time tells you when by the book isn't necessary.  As you work at your trade you develop things like toolkits and acceptable short cuts.  In software we come up with tools for bug analysis, diffing files, profiling performance, writing code.  There are at least a few hundred articles on the web devoted to a developers "toolkit".  Some talk about it like finding that perfect set of wood working tools, where your hand has practically reshaped the handle from use.

In a purely technical sense it's also an art form.  Good code is not just functionally correct, but it's elegant.  Sometimes its the way the code touches the processor, ram, and disc in the most minimal and efficient way possible.  Other times its the way it does large amounts of effort with minimal amount of logic.  I'm not talking about a Perl one liner but simple, easy to read, powerful to use code.

I think like civil engineering and architecture, software engineering hints at the blending of these worlds; tradecraft and science.  The purely analytically with the artistic.  A building built on math alone would be a pretty boring building.  Architects learn to make a building soar.  In the same vein a great software engineer can make a program sing.  Don't get me wrong, we need the science too.  Without it our programs would be like the failed library building where the architect forgot to account for the weight of the books.  Just don't forget the craftmanship.