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Out of curiosity: I studied engineering in Germany. There's no such thing as a PEng in Germany -- the only thing is that the title of Dipl.-Ing. (equivalent to

Out of curiosity: I studied engineering in Germany. There's no such thing as a PEng in Germany -- the only thing is that the title of Dipl.-Ing. (equivalent to MEng), which was the culmination of my studies, is protected. How does it make you feel for me to claim I'm an engineer? (BTW, I get seriously uptight at all the web designers who like to call themselves engineers :-) )

ThenAsNow 8y ago
> (BTW, I get seriously uptight at all the web designers who like to call themselves engineers :-) ) I feel similarly to you, but would extend it to cover most software development, period. With feet in multiple traditional engineering disciplines, I don't see the majority of software development as coming close to the bar of engineering (though some certainly does). And I don't mean that in the sense of licensure, nor am I merely trying to be snooty. But to hear the software world co-opt "engineering" to mean "technical work" is grating.
- foepys 8y ago
  I am seriously curious, what is the difference between e.g. an mechanical engineer designing a new machine and a person designing a new software system that is intended to be maintained for at least 10 years by various teams? Is there some sort of bonus just because it's physical vs virtual?
  - blihp 8y ago
    I think it's the rigor of the field. The general expectation is that a mechanical, or any other type of engineer, will bring to the table some minimum set of skills and knowledge that other engineers in the same field possess. This is not true in computing since so many people entered the field from so many vectors. Not to mention there's still a hell of a lot of snake oil being peddled because there's so much money in the field of computing. For example: one can't be certain that someone with a Computer Science degree even knows how to program or has any other specific knowledge or skills. Or that someone supposedly with X years of experience with Y understands Y at all vs. just repeating tasks learned by rote. Or that someone who went to a Z bootcamp can actually do anything useful with/in Z. Maybe someday we'll get there, but it's still a long ways off.
  - ThenAsNow 8y ago
    > Is there some sort of bonus just because it's physical vs virtual? No, it's not about a "bonus" because it's physical. erikpukinskis [1] and blihp [2] captured essential reasons for the differences in their comments, and I did so in my response to yc-krain [3]. I mean this in no way condescendingly, but if the bulk of one's technical experience is all in software with no deep exposure to the engineering lifecycle in the physical realm, it could be hard to grok the underlying theme of rigor that these comments get at. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801168 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801296 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801396
- yc-kraln 8y ago
  My computer engineering degree included Chemistry, Physics, Mechanical Engineering (statics/dynamics) Multivariate Calculus, Differential Equations / Linear Algebra, as well as Humanities (writing, history, art) in addition to software, hardware, electronics... Am I not coming close to the "bar of engineering"? You can boil engineering down (maybe a bit much, but bear with me) to: plan, execute, measure, adjust. The difference between software /programming/ and software /engineering/ is that programming often stops after execute, and hands measure to someone else maybe, whereas a software engineer is constantly measuring what they are doing and trying to understand why it may be deviating from plan, and how to make it better in the future. To wit, you don't need software engineers to build you a web application, but you had better have them working on your file system.
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    None of the things you listed would seem to indicate anything about your ability to employ a rigorous approach to software development equivalent to what a credentialed civil engineer does with roads. A civil engineer is not credentialed because they took physics and DiffEq. They are that because their field has defined a body of knowledge and rigor that has been shown to adequately protect the public within a narrow band of services. I am not aware of any such effort anywhere in software, which is why many engineers consider the whole notion of “software engineering” to be a farce.
    - zozbot123 8y ago
      > I am not aware of any such effort anywhere in software, which is why many engineers consider the whole notion of “software engineering” to be a farce. The Rust Evangelism Strikeforce is working hard to change that.
    - logifail 8y ago
      >> ability to employ a rigorous approach to software development equivalent to what a credentialed civil engineer does with roads Q: Are there many software engineers who build poor-quality roads in their spare time?

ThenAsNow 8y ago

> (BTW, I get seriously uptight at all the web designers who like to call themselves engineers :-) ) I feel similarly to you, but would extend it to cover most software development, period. With feet in multiple traditional engineering disciplines, I don't see the majority of software development as coming close to the bar of engineering (though some certainly does). And I don't mean that in the sense of licensure, nor am I merely trying to be snooty. But to hear the software world co-opt "engineering" to mean "technical work" is grating.

foepys 8y ago
I am seriously curious, what is the difference between e.g. an mechanical engineer designing a new machine and a person designing a new software system that is intended to be maintained for at least 10 years by various teams? Is there some sort of bonus just because it's physical vs virtual?
- blihp 8y ago
  I think it's the rigor of the field. The general expectation is that a mechanical, or any other type of engineer, will bring to the table some minimum set of skills and knowledge that other engineers in the same field possess. This is not true in computing since so many people entered the field from so many vectors. Not to mention there's still a hell of a lot of snake oil being peddled because there's so much money in the field of computing. For example: one can't be certain that someone with a Computer Science degree even knows how to program or has any other specific knowledge or skills. Or that someone supposedly with X years of experience with Y understands Y at all vs. just repeating tasks learned by rote. Or that someone who went to a Z bootcamp can actually do anything useful with/in Z. Maybe someday we'll get there, but it's still a long ways off.
- ThenAsNow 8y ago
  > Is there some sort of bonus just because it's physical vs virtual? No, it's not about a "bonus" because it's physical. erikpukinskis [1] and blihp [2] captured essential reasons for the differences in their comments, and I did so in my response to yc-krain [3]. I mean this in no way condescendingly, but if the bulk of one's technical experience is all in software with no deep exposure to the engineering lifecycle in the physical realm, it could be hard to grok the underlying theme of rigor that these comments get at. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801168 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801296 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801396
yc-kraln 8y ago
My computer engineering degree included Chemistry, Physics, Mechanical Engineering (statics/dynamics) Multivariate Calculus, Differential Equations / Linear Algebra, as well as Humanities (writing, history, art) in addition to software, hardware, electronics... Am I not coming close to the "bar of engineering"? You can boil engineering down (maybe a bit much, but bear with me) to: plan, execute, measure, adjust. The difference between software /programming/ and software /engineering/ is that programming often stops after execute, and hands measure to someone else maybe, whereas a software engineer is constantly measuring what they are doing and trying to understand why it may be deviating from plan, and how to make it better in the future. To wit, you don't need software engineers to build you a web application, but you had better have them working on your file system.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  None of the things you listed would seem to indicate anything about your ability to employ a rigorous approach to software development equivalent to what a credentialed civil engineer does with roads. A civil engineer is not credentialed because they took physics and DiffEq. They are that because their field has defined a body of knowledge and rigor that has been shown to adequately protect the public within a narrow band of services. I am not aware of any such effort anywhere in software, which is why many engineers consider the whole notion of “software engineering” to be a farce.
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    > I am not aware of any such effort anywhere in software, which is why many engineers consider the whole notion of “software engineering” to be a farce. The Rust Evangelism Strikeforce is working hard to change that.
  - logifail 8y ago
    >> ability to employ a rigorous approach to software development equivalent to what a credentialed civil engineer does with roads Q: Are there many software engineers who build poor-quality roads in their spare time?