4 ms·

Actually I'm a mechanical engineer. Webdevs calling themselves engineers is an insult to the amount of work and effort that I've put in to get where I am now.

Actually I'm a mechanical engineer. Webdevs calling themselves engineers is an insult to the amount of work and effort that I've put in to get where I am now. It's like medical technician calling themselves a doctor because they took a training prep course.

khedoros 11y ago
A technician could call themselves a "doctor", but they couldn't call themselves a "Medical Doctor". A developer can call themselves an "engineer", but they cannot call themselves a "Professional Engineer". If I started putting "PE" after my name, I'd expect the NCEES to come after me. No one but you can decide what you take as an insult, of course, but choosing industry-standard (and legally uncontrolled) terminology like "software engineer" to take offense at seems like a losing battle.
kajecounterhack 11y ago
Webdevs calling themselves engineers is an insult to the amount of work and effort that I've put in to get where I am now 1. "web dev" is nebulous. At what part of the stack does it cease to be "web dev?" 2. Definition of engineer: "An engineer is a practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics, and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical, societal and commercial problems." Your statements misunderstand the definition of an engineer and devalue the accomplishments of people who apply math, science, and ingenuity to [animate things on websites] [make a website load in requisite time] [bend the constraints set by the browser to achieve certain objectives] [...insert other software engineering tasks]. 3. It sounds to me that you feel hurt over credentials. What you are projecting: "I worked hard for this thing and I perceive that you are devaluing it." My response is, credentials are different in software engineering, sorry. And nobody is devaluing your mechanical engineering degree here; if it's something in your field that is valuable, that's good for you. But mechanical engineering isn't software engineering, and you can't say x isn't engineering, you have to understand what the accepted definition is.

khedoros 11y ago

A technician could call themselves a "doctor", but they couldn't call themselves a "Medical Doctor". A developer can call themselves an "engineer", but they cannot call themselves a "Professional Engineer". If I started putting "PE" after my name, I'd expect the NCEES to come after me. No one but you can decide what you take as an insult, of course, but choosing industry-standard (and legally uncontrolled) terminology like "software engineer" to take offense at seems like a losing battle.

kajecounterhack 11y ago

Webdevs calling themselves engineers is an insult to the amount of work and effort that I've put in to get where I am now 1. "web dev" is nebulous. At what part of the stack does it cease to be "web dev?" 2. Definition of engineer: "An engineer is a practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics, and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical, societal and commercial problems." Your statements misunderstand the definition of an engineer and devalue the accomplishments of people who apply math, science, and ingenuity to [animate things on websites] [make a website load in requisite time] [bend the constraints set by the browser to achieve certain objectives] [...insert other software engineering tasks]. 3. It sounds to me that you feel hurt over credentials. What you are projecting: "I worked hard for this thing and I perceive that you are devaluing it." My response is, credentials are different in software engineering, sorry. And nobody is devaluing your mechanical engineering degree here; if it's something in your field that is valuable, that's good for you. But mechanical engineering isn't software engineering, and you can't say x isn't engineering, you have to understand what the accepted definition is.