If students wind up working in an Agile Eden, on a small team that stays together for a long period of time, with a single customer who is engaged in overseeing their software, calling well-documented APIs in a well-understood environment—then great, they can dial back their application of software engineering principles and relive their halcyon days. But if not, they need to have the core engineering knowledge. It’s a lot easier to know the underlying principles and choose not to apply them than it is to not know them and be in over your head.
