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I darted my work life as a civil engineer, mostly designing structural steel buildings. Now many years later I'm a data engineer at a big tech firm. My opinion:

I darted my work life as a civil engineer, mostly designing structural steel buildings. Now many years later I'm a data engineer at a big tech firm. My opinion: programming work is engineering. I think the author simply has no idea what either field entails, and has proved me now to denigrate the worth of an English major's career. Seriously though, there are so many kinds of engineering: Structural engineer Geotechnical engineer Chemical engineer Biomedical engineer Genetic engineer Mechanical engineer Just to name a handful. Software engineer clearly fits.

nashashmi 11y ago
I too am a Civil Engineer. I aspire to be a programmer. But programmers are not engineers! Engineer is a title of elites that everybody tries to steal. The guy who operates a crane is called a crane engineer. IMO, That is not engineering! The guy who repairs trains is also an engineer. IMO, that is not engineering. Engineer is someone who sweats through school, thinks about things in ways that have never been thought before, and can lose his job and license, for doing things wrong. Software engineer is one of those titles taken by programmers for prestige. There are no calculations involved. There is just sweat. It is like calling CAD drafter, a CAD engineer for all of those times he sweats away on enormous drawings. Engineer is a high ranking title, that bears command and direction, not a role done by programmers who listen to a manager grunt.
- pluma 11y ago
  > There is just sweat. Unless you're a junior developer you should be able to do more than just grunt work. If you think grunt work is all there is to software development, you frankly don't know what you're talking about. I've worked with software developers in tech companies that plan and fine-tune code and data formats based on metrics like memory use and performance -- exactly the calculations you claim aren't involved in software. The difference between software and physical objects is that the resource cost of producing software is zero so the difference between implementation and simulation is often non-existent. So unlike physical engineering where you necessarily need to run calculations because testing is expensive, you have a tight feedback loop that allows you to tweak a system under test in ways physical engineers could only dream of -- and even so, better simulation tools are already saving physical engineers a lot of number crunching. > Engineer is a high ranking title In your opinion. You already stated crane operators are called "engineers" too. That's the standard you need to compare "software engineers" to. Is software development more like engineering than operating a crane or less? > done by programmers who listen to a manager grunt. No true Scotsman, much? You're not seriously claiming engineers are never constrained by decisions from superiors, are you? The only difference I can see is that (like lawyers and accountants) engineers have skin in the game that disincentives following certain orders -- exactly what has been asked of software developers in the fallout of the VW scandal.
- ck425 11y ago
  It sounds to me like you've never actually worked in software engineering. I'd estimate only 30-45% of my time in actually spent 'programming'. The rest of it is spent (re)designing systems, learning new technologies and techniques, creating infrastructure (monitoring, boxes, AWS structures etc), testing (though this is often programming but of a reasonably different kind) and writing documentation (even if it's not as in-depth as other engineering fields. I've actually been really enjoying work recently because I've spent the last 2 weeks mainly just programming and its been a lovely change. I'm not unsympathetic to the authors views on the lack of certification, and due to fast feedback loops software engineering is very different to traditional engineering fields but there's a lot more to software engineering than programming.

nashashmi 11y ago

I too am a Civil Engineer. I aspire to be a programmer. But programmers are not engineers! Engineer is a title of elites that everybody tries to steal. The guy who operates a crane is called a crane engineer. IMO, That is not engineering! The guy who repairs trains is also an engineer. IMO, that is not engineering. Engineer is someone who sweats through school, thinks about things in ways that have never been thought before, and can lose his job and license, for doing things wrong. Software engineer is one of those titles taken by programmers for prestige. There are no calculations involved. There is just sweat. It is like calling CAD drafter, a CAD engineer for all of those times he sweats away on enormous drawings. Engineer is a high ranking title, that bears command and direction, not a role done by programmers who listen to a manager grunt.

pluma 11y ago
> There is just sweat. Unless you're a junior developer you should be able to do more than just grunt work. If you think grunt work is all there is to software development, you frankly don't know what you're talking about. I've worked with software developers in tech companies that plan and fine-tune code and data formats based on metrics like memory use and performance -- exactly the calculations you claim aren't involved in software. The difference between software and physical objects is that the resource cost of producing software is zero so the difference between implementation and simulation is often non-existent. So unlike physical engineering where you necessarily need to run calculations because testing is expensive, you have a tight feedback loop that allows you to tweak a system under test in ways physical engineers could only dream of -- and even so, better simulation tools are already saving physical engineers a lot of number crunching. > Engineer is a high ranking title In your opinion. You already stated crane operators are called "engineers" too. That's the standard you need to compare "software engineers" to. Is software development more like engineering than operating a crane or less? > done by programmers who listen to a manager grunt. No true Scotsman, much? You're not seriously claiming engineers are never constrained by decisions from superiors, are you? The only difference I can see is that (like lawyers and accountants) engineers have skin in the game that disincentives following certain orders -- exactly what has been asked of software developers in the fallout of the VW scandal.
ck425 11y ago
It sounds to me like you've never actually worked in software engineering. I'd estimate only 30-45% of my time in actually spent 'programming'. The rest of it is spent (re)designing systems, learning new technologies and techniques, creating infrastructure (monitoring, boxes, AWS structures etc), testing (though this is often programming but of a reasonably different kind) and writing documentation (even if it's not as in-depth as other engineering fields. I've actually been really enjoying work recently because I've spent the last 2 weeks mainly just programming and its been a lovely change. I'm not unsympathetic to the authors views on the lack of certification, and due to fast feedback loops software engineering is very different to traditional engineering fields but there's a lot more to software engineering than programming.