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The UK is infamously known for not appreciating programming skills. Any technical skills at all really. In Italy or Germany an engineer is a respected and prot

The UK is infamously known for not appreciating programming skills. Any technical skills at all really. In Italy or Germany an engineer is a respected and protected profession. In the UK an "engineer" is the person who swaps a toner cartridge or replaces a washer in a tap, the word gets used for anyone regardless of their qualifications or role, devaluing it in the public consciousness.

allendoerfer 6y ago
> In Italy or Germany an engineer is a respected and protected profession. So much so, that in fact a software developer is definitely not seen as an engineer in Germany, which is a protected word you can only call yourself, when you actually have an engineering degree (similar to lawyer or doctor). It also does not mean, that you can earn more over here. I am hoping that this will change due to the car manufacturers investing massively in vehicle software.
- qsort 6y ago
  It's exactly the same in Italy. I self-describe as a "software engineer" in English-speaking contexts because the word "engineer" in English doesn't have the same connotation, but I'm very careful never to use the Italian or German equivalents. It's considered a very serious lie that could (unlikely, but potentially) even get you in legal trouble.
  - gpderetta 6y ago
    Yes. In Italy you can actually get an Engineering degree in CS, but you still need to take an habilitation exam to call yourself an Engineer (and in fact even pure CS graduates can take the exam). Most don't bother though as it is not really needing for anything other than calling yourself an actual Ingegnere.
  - lifeisstillgood 6y ago
    This rather begs the question - can we ever migrate coding to be come a profession like 'real' engineering? I think its the strongest argument for 'software literacy' I can come up with - no we cannot.
    - qsort 6y ago
      It kind of depends on what you mean. Leaving aside regulatory frameworks and restrictions on "engineering proper", I believe the underlying question is "can we expect the average 100 IQ person to be able to write code?". I believe the answer could hypothetically be yes, but you have to attach a lot of strings to that. I don't think it's reasonable to expect anybody to come out of high school with a firm understanding of, say, memory management or OOP principles or computational complexity, but I do believe a bit of "algorithmic thinking", for lack of a better word, could be something valuable to integrate in the average curriculum. It's not less esoteric than Latin or Greek.
    - goatinaboat 6y ago
      can we ever migrate coding to be come a profession like 'real' engineering? Of course we can, but noone is willing to pay for it. Then they pay for it on other ways, and act like they're surprised when once again hackers waltz in, or there's an outage that costs the business a fortune, or yet another project fails to deliver because of corners cut early on.
junippor 6y ago
The parent post was downvoted by the HN hivemind who loves opining about things it knows nothing about. I live in the UK and while parent is obviously hyperbolic, it has some truth in it. Where I work, people with engineer in their job title are _literally_ the ones that come around when your computer breaks and they turn it off and on again. Come to think about it, parent isn't even that hyperbolic...
pmlnr 6y ago
~This annoys me as well~. I find this degrading to my profession as well. Engineer is at minimum BSc, and no, a plumber is not an engineer.

allendoerfer 6y ago

> In Italy or Germany an engineer is a respected and protected profession. So much so, that in fact a software developer is definitely not seen as an engineer in Germany, which is a protected word you can only call yourself, when you actually have an engineering degree (similar to lawyer or doctor). It also does not mean, that you can earn more over here. I am hoping that this will change due to the car manufacturers investing massively in vehicle software.

qsort 6y ago
It's exactly the same in Italy. I self-describe as a "software engineer" in English-speaking contexts because the word "engineer" in English doesn't have the same connotation, but I'm very careful never to use the Italian or German equivalents. It's considered a very serious lie that could (unlikely, but potentially) even get you in legal trouble.
- gpderetta 6y ago
  Yes. In Italy you can actually get an Engineering degree in CS, but you still need to take an habilitation exam to call yourself an Engineer (and in fact even pure CS graduates can take the exam). Most don't bother though as it is not really needing for anything other than calling yourself an actual Ingegnere.
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  This rather begs the question - can we ever migrate coding to be come a profession like 'real' engineering? I think its the strongest argument for 'software literacy' I can come up with - no we cannot.
  - qsort 6y ago
    It kind of depends on what you mean. Leaving aside regulatory frameworks and restrictions on "engineering proper", I believe the underlying question is "can we expect the average 100 IQ person to be able to write code?". I believe the answer could hypothetically be yes, but you have to attach a lot of strings to that. I don't think it's reasonable to expect anybody to come out of high school with a firm understanding of, say, memory management or OOP principles or computational complexity, but I do believe a bit of "algorithmic thinking", for lack of a better word, could be something valuable to integrate in the average curriculum. It's not less esoteric than Latin or Greek.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    can we ever migrate coding to be come a profession like 'real' engineering? Of course we can, but noone is willing to pay for it. Then they pay for it on other ways, and act like they're surprised when once again hackers waltz in, or there's an outage that costs the business a fortune, or yet another project fails to deliver because of corners cut early on.

junippor 6y ago

The parent post was downvoted by the HN hivemind who loves opining about things it knows nothing about. I live in the UK and while parent is obviously hyperbolic, it has some truth in it. Where I work, people with engineer in their job title are _literally_ the ones that come around when your computer breaks and they turn it off and on again. Come to think about it, parent isn't even that hyperbolic...

pmlnr 6y ago

~This annoys me as well~. I find this degrading to my profession as well. Engineer is at minimum BSc, and no, a plumber is not an engineer.