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There should be a major distinction between programmers and Engineers. As an engineer that made the transition to programming, many interviews I was told Engin
by marketingPro 6y ago
There should be a major distinction between programmers and Engineers.
As an engineer that made the transition to programming, many interviews I was told Engineering isn't programming. I had to take an entry level programming job (and pay).
And the opposite is True too. Programmers are not Engineers. In Engineering you are expected to prove everything and there generally is only 1 correct solution(given cost, quality, and time specifications). That's generally the scientific method approach.
In programming, outside of algorithm efficiency, you are taught to listen to Authority and follow best practices or standard practices. This isn't science, it's art.
Programming pays better and is in higher demand, so I'm not hating on programming. But these are distinctly different professions and ways of thinking.
- kemiller2002 6y agoI have a deep respect for engineers and as a programmer, I think you are absolutely right. I don’t like the term “engineer.” It doesn’t fit, and I hate that we have adopted it, I think mainly because it makes people in the business side take programming more seriously. Like we have to justify to people that our job is actually difficult and requires some level of skill. It doesn’t convey the level of creativity, programmers use on a regular basis.
- zwieback 6y agoIt's not a clear distinction, though. In my job I go between science, engineering and programming, as the project requires. There is a lot of overlap.
- marketingPro 6y agoYour job sounds more like Engineering. Embedded?
- walshemj 6y agoIts unusual for there to be exactly "one" correct solution for a given engineering problem.
- jl2718 6y agoI see it slightly differently. As an engineer, most of my time is spent trying to understand the scientific principles behind some observed failure so that some tiny tweak can be applied to fix it. There is design, but very analytical and minimalist. As a programmer, I’m mostly interacting with people based on their ideas and desires. There’s also a lot more trade knowledge about software tools and languages, but very little about first principles. The ideas about how to design something seem arbitrarily fashionable rather than optimized based on constraints.