WRT short sleeved shirts: The Apollo-era NASA engineers pretty much all wore short-sleeved white shirts, black slacks, and a black tie. The image has stuck in m

WRT short sleeved shirts: The Apollo-era NASA engineers pretty much all wore short-sleeved white shirts, black slacks, and a black tie. The image has stuck in many people's heads as what a professional engineer should look like, even younger people who've seen movies about the era like Apollo 13. It's also still a popular style at NASA for looking professional (photo ops and such). Of course the reasoning for short sleeves is that graphite dust would stain long sleeves. Likewise for a black tie. Since drafting using pencils is pretty much nonexistent these days the need for the style is gone. Now it's just used to project an image of competent professional engineering. It's also much more common among engineers in disciplines where they could get a PE than among programmers. Code monkeys don't match, sparkies and gearheads do.