7 ms·

This is the point of having Professional Engineers and a very strict deontological code; it tips the incentive scale towards doing the right thing. When asked

This is the point of having Professional Engineers and a very strict deontological code; it tips the incentive scale towards doing the right thing. When asked to do something unethical, the P.E. has a choice: they can refuse, in which case they might lose their job; or they can comply, in which case they might lose their license altogether (and thus their job).

Verdex 7y ago
While I like the idea of something that helps software engineers to make the right decision due to simply self preservation (so we'll reach even the most self centered software engineer), I don't think Professional Engineering licenses are going to be able to help. If you're designing a bridge, this is pretty obvious work and it's pretty isolated. What I mean by that is that A) you're not going to go off and design bridges in secret and then sell those designs to someone who will build it in secret such that the public will later make use of the bridge. At some point someone in the government is going to ask why there's a new bridge over that river. And B) there isn't a huge world wide market for bridges that has near infinite sub niches in nearly every market imaginable. So having a professional engineer license for bridges makes sense because if the license is lost, then it really does mean the end of your career. Software is often an engineering artifact, but it's also like mathematics. And it's also like literature. You might be able to stop someone from selling their services directly, but you can't stop them from writing code altogether without forming a terrifying oppressive distopia. So the Professional Software Engineer might not care about losing the license because they can still sell their skills to companies on the other side of the world where there is no regulation. Or they can create their own product that contains software and sell that product. Or they can publish their software on github and somehow make enough from tips that they don't need another job. Or they can get a job that doesn't require software development but can be highly augmented by it. Or they can make websites technologically unsophisticated users. Losing the license doesn't mean that their career is over. It is only a slight annoyance. There's always going to be enough software engineers that aren't afraid of losing a license that the ones that are afraid won't prevent anything problematic from happening.
- zwkrt 7y ago
  Imagine you replaced "software" with "civil" and everything you said remains true. I can design bridges in my home but I can't sell my services legally. Will someone buy one of my bridge designs and impelement it, especially in another country? Possibly! But that doesn't make me a civil engineer, and no engineering firm would hire me. Also, it is probably cheaper and easier for people in other countries to hire a local engineer than to use my services anyway. Your base assumption that other countries than <your country> would not have regulation might be true at first, but probably not for long, and something is better than nothing. I agree that people cannot be banned from writing software outright, but I think it is reasonable that in many situations it is reasonable that a company or agency is held to a standard that they only deploy software that has been produced through some set of engineering practices, similar to GAAP.
  - stickfigure 7y ago
    Bridges and civil structures are permitted, with plans (and fees) filed with government offices. That's how licensing is enforced. Imagine for a moment, a world in which every git commit requires a permit from the county planner. Also: You will not get agreement on what the GAAP practices of software are. This industry isn't that mature.
    - Verdex 7y ago
      > Also: You will not get agreement on what the GAAP practices of software are. This industry isn't that mature. Hear, hear. This point cannot be overstated enough. People have been building bridges for thousands of years. Software Engineering has only really been a thing for a few dozen years. We do not know what we're doing yet and it's going to be a very long time before we do. Different domains almost definitely need different guidelines. Different ways of thinking might even need different guidelines. Anything we try to enforce now will be seen as embarrassingly dangerous in the future on the order of using radium for wrist watches.
      - lisper 7y ago
vonmoltke 7y ago
That, in turn, requires licensure to be a condition of employment, which is tricky because a) an engineer needs to be employed for a minimum period of time before they can get licensed in the first place and b) the industrial exemption means that most engineers don't actually need a license, and indeed most don't have one (at least in the US).
- emilecantin 7y ago
  Yeah, it's very different here in Québec. Some acts are "reserved" acts that only licensed engineers can perform. It actually falls under the same set of laws as doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc. which we call "Code des professions". The engineering law is very outdated, though (last modified in the 80s), but we're working on it. Some proposals I've seen would require a P.E. for safety-sensitive code in the automotive and aerospace industries.
- kec 7y ago
  Not really. In settings where a PE is required any asshole can work on the project so ling as they're under the supervision of a PE who ultimately signs off on the whole thing. I imagine medicine (residency?) and law work similarly.
bumby 7y ago
Does software have the equivalent consensus standards like other engineering disciplines? Or more importantly, are they as readily adopted? It seems like there's a cultural problem with software development that would be an impediment to having a licensed approach. I know there's lots of IEEE standards that cover good practices, but they don't seem to be as adhered to as, say, ASME codes in the oil/gas industry. Maybe there's a slow change already happening. I know controls engineer licenses have become more common and NCEES now offers a software curriculum.
lazyasciiart 7y ago
There were plenty of professional (not software) engineers at Boeing and Volkswagen and I haven't heard about any of them losing their licenses.
- wil421 7y ago
  My father is a career EE at one of the larger engineer companies. I’ve never even heard of him or any other EE, ME, or SE for that matter having a license. The only time I heard of engineering licenses was that one Engineer in Oregon who fought a city and got fined for calling himself an engineer.[1] [1]https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-light-timing-lawsuit/ https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...
  - coupdejarnac 7y ago
    I'm a EE/SE with a license. There are tens of us! Kidding aside, your father and his coworkers are working under an exemption, and they are probably unaware of it.
    - wil421 7y ago
      I tried to look where I live but it didn’t have anything for Georgia. Most of the PE stuff was about land surveyors. I know Civil and Structural Engineers with all sorts of licenses and accreditations.
      - bumby 7y ago
        For Georgia PEs: http://verify.sos.ga.gov/verification/ http://verify.sos.ga.gov/verification/ For different PE domains: https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/ https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/
        wil421 7y ago
        These are construction and civil engineers. I have family and friends listed in your link and they are all in construction. I do not see any EEs, MEs, or SEs.
hrktb 7y ago
There was recently the John Oliver show about death penalty, where physicists couldn’t cooperate in death penalty settings as it was against their pledge. The result was not that nothing was done, but instead medical substances are used by non medical staff, doing unethical operations. I think the same basically happens in the software industry: some of us have a pledge, but it just means little to nothing as anyone can replace us on the iffy parts, and we still build libraries that benefit any use. It also reminds me of the “don’t use for evil” bit in the json license, where IBM kindly requested a special license to do whatever it wants with it.
- quacked 7y ago
  Did you mean "physicians"?
  - hrktb 7y ago
    Thanks for the catch, yes I meant physician.
harimau777 7y ago
Doesn't that boil down though to: "You may as well do the right thing because you are going to be punished either way." Compared to the alternative of protecting the engineer, that seems like a rather dystopian way to encourage doing the right thing.
- emilecantin 7y ago
  In a sense, yes. It's a choice between losing your job or your whole career. However, because losing your whole career is such a horrifying prospect, companies are going to have a very hard time finding an engineer willing to break the rules. When you need an engineer to sign off on something, but no one is willing to, you might re-evaluate your stance. It's the same as trying to find a lawyer willing to break the law, in a sense. As an engineer, you're beholden to the public first, and your employer second.

Verdex 7y ago

While I like the idea of something that helps software engineers to make the right decision due to simply self preservation (so we'll reach even the most self centered software engineer), I don't think Professional Engineering licenses are going to be able to help. If you're designing a bridge, this is pretty obvious work and it's pretty isolated. What I mean by that is that A) you're not going to go off and design bridges in secret and then sell those designs to someone who will build it in secret such that the public will later make use of the bridge. At some point someone in the government is going to ask why there's a new bridge over that river. And B) there isn't a huge world wide market for bridges that has near infinite sub niches in nearly every market imaginable. So having a professional engineer license for bridges makes sense because if the license is lost, then it really does mean the end of your career. Software is often an engineering artifact, but it's also like mathematics. And it's also like literature. You might be able to stop someone from selling their services directly, but you can't stop them from writing code altogether without forming a terrifying oppressive distopia. So the Professional Software Engineer might not care about losing the license because they can still sell their skills to companies on the other side of the world where there is no regulation. Or they can create their own product that contains software and sell that product. Or they can publish their software on github and somehow make enough from tips that they don't need another job. Or they can get a job that doesn't require software development but can be highly augmented by it. Or they can make websites technologically unsophisticated users. Losing the license doesn't mean that their career is over. It is only a slight annoyance. There's always going to be enough software engineers that aren't afraid of losing a license that the ones that are afraid won't prevent anything problematic from happening.

zwkrt 7y ago
Imagine you replaced "software" with "civil" and everything you said remains true. I can design bridges in my home but I can't sell my services legally. Will someone buy one of my bridge designs and impelement it, especially in another country? Possibly! But that doesn't make me a civil engineer, and no engineering firm would hire me. Also, it is probably cheaper and easier for people in other countries to hire a local engineer than to use my services anyway. Your base assumption that other countries than <your country> would not have regulation might be true at first, but probably not for long, and something is better than nothing. I agree that people cannot be banned from writing software outright, but I think it is reasonable that in many situations it is reasonable that a company or agency is held to a standard that they only deploy software that has been produced through some set of engineering practices, similar to GAAP.
- stickfigure 7y ago
  Bridges and civil structures are permitted, with plans (and fees) filed with government offices. That's how licensing is enforced. Imagine for a moment, a world in which every git commit requires a permit from the county planner. Also: You will not get agreement on what the GAAP practices of software are. This industry isn't that mature.
  - Verdex 7y ago
    > Also: You will not get agreement on what the GAAP practices of software are. This industry isn't that mature. Hear, hear. This point cannot be overstated enough. People have been building bridges for thousands of years. Software Engineering has only really been a thing for a few dozen years. We do not know what we're doing yet and it's going to be a very long time before we do. Different domains almost definitely need different guidelines. Different ways of thinking might even need different guidelines. Anything we try to enforce now will be seen as embarrassingly dangerous in the future on the order of using radium for wrist watches.
    - lisper 7y ago

vonmoltke 7y ago

That, in turn, requires licensure to be a condition of employment, which is tricky because a) an engineer needs to be employed for a minimum period of time before they can get licensed in the first place and b) the industrial exemption means that most engineers don't actually need a license, and indeed most don't have one (at least in the US).

emilecantin 7y ago
Yeah, it's very different here in Québec. Some acts are "reserved" acts that only licensed engineers can perform. It actually falls under the same set of laws as doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc. which we call "Code des professions". The engineering law is very outdated, though (last modified in the 80s), but we're working on it. Some proposals I've seen would require a P.E. for safety-sensitive code in the automotive and aerospace industries.
kec 7y ago
Not really. In settings where a PE is required any asshole can work on the project so ling as they're under the supervision of a PE who ultimately signs off on the whole thing. I imagine medicine (residency?) and law work similarly.

bumby 7y ago

Does software have the equivalent consensus standards like other engineering disciplines? Or more importantly, are they as readily adopted? It seems like there's a cultural problem with software development that would be an impediment to having a licensed approach. I know there's lots of IEEE standards that cover good practices, but they don't seem to be as adhered to as, say, ASME codes in the oil/gas industry. Maybe there's a slow change already happening. I know controls engineer licenses have become more common and NCEES now offers a software curriculum.

lazyasciiart 7y ago

There were plenty of professional (not software) engineers at Boeing and Volkswagen and I haven't heard about any of them losing their licenses.

wil421 7y ago
My father is a career EE at one of the larger engineer companies. I’ve never even heard of him or any other EE, ME, or SE for that matter having a license. The only time I heard of engineering licenses was that one Engineer in Oregon who fought a city and got fined for calling himself an engineer.[1] [1]https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-light-timing-lawsuit/ https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...
- coupdejarnac 7y ago
  I'm a EE/SE with a license. There are tens of us! Kidding aside, your father and his coworkers are working under an exemption, and they are probably unaware of it.
  - wil421 7y ago
    I tried to look where I live but it didn’t have anything for Georgia. Most of the PE stuff was about land surveyors. I know Civil and Structural Engineers with all sorts of licenses and accreditations.
    - bumby 7y ago
      For Georgia PEs: http://verify.sos.ga.gov/verification/ http://verify.sos.ga.gov/verification/ For different PE domains: https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/ https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/
      - wil421 7y ago
        These are construction and civil engineers. I have family and friends listed in your link and they are all in construction. I do not see any EEs, MEs, or SEs.

hrktb 7y ago

There was recently the John Oliver show about death penalty, where physicists couldn’t cooperate in death penalty settings as it was against their pledge. The result was not that nothing was done, but instead medical substances are used by non medical staff, doing unethical operations. I think the same basically happens in the software industry: some of us have a pledge, but it just means little to nothing as anyone can replace us on the iffy parts, and we still build libraries that benefit any use. It also reminds me of the “don’t use for evil” bit in the json license, where IBM kindly requested a special license to do whatever it wants with it.

quacked 7y ago
Did you mean "physicians"?
- hrktb 7y ago
  Thanks for the catch, yes I meant physician.

harimau777 7y ago

Doesn't that boil down though to: "You may as well do the right thing because you are going to be punished either way." Compared to the alternative of protecting the engineer, that seems like a rather dystopian way to encourage doing the right thing.

emilecantin 7y ago
In a sense, yes. It's a choice between losing your job or your whole career. However, because losing your whole career is such a horrifying prospect, companies are going to have a very hard time finding an engineer willing to break the rules. When you need an engineer to sign off on something, but no one is willing to, you might re-evaluate your stance. It's the same as trying to find a lawyer willing to break the law, in a sense. As an engineer, you're beholden to the public first, and your employer second.