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Can we stop calling programmers Engineers? I see this twitterer describes herself as "Staff Software Engineer at Mozilla". In other words, a programmer.

mechatrocity 5y ago
I agree it's frustrating. I'm a Software Safety PEng that does alot of compliance and standards work, and safety validation. My company is good about delineating between engineering and developers... But very few orgs outside of safety critical industries care at all
bsder 5y ago
And it's not even if you have a PE (Professional Engineering) license. For example, all the VLSI designs I've worked on had "design reviews". Always. And generally you had to pass several layers of automated design reviews before you could get to the layer of having a human review it. Why do software people think other fields all suck as much as software development?
Twixes 5y ago
It's entirely accurate - software development is a branch of engineering. The name doesn't come from a literal "engine" (though the origin is the same), it means "someone who contrives contraptions".
david-gpu 5y ago
> Can we stop calling programmers Engineers? I still find this sentiment hurtful after all these years. It comes across as demeaning of my credentials and my work. Let's start with my degree. My master's degree reads "Informatics Engineer", a title that was approved at the national level by the EU country where I graduated. That alone should be sufficient in my opinion. Degrees don't matter? What about people? When the exact work I do is performed by "true Engineers" then does that make it true enfineering? Most of my co-workers are Electronics Engineers and while they perform the same tasks I do, I have yet to see anybody question their worth. Or perhaps my colleagues may be true Engineers, but the work they are doing is mere programming, as evidenced by a simple programmer like me doing it. Maybe it's the processes we follow that matter. True engineering work involves design, documentation and review processes, after all. Well, the processes we follow come directly from EE best practices because that's the nature of the work we do (computer architecture). Software engineering also has its own similar design processes tailored to their needs. Not significantly different, I must say. Maybe it's not the accreditation, the people or the processes. Perhaps the demarcation between engineering and programming is in the systems we design. They must be designs worthy of being patented, systems so important that people's lives are at risk if they malfunction. I have a dozen patents -- none of them in software. I have worked on safety critical systems where death and dismemberment were expected consequences of malfunction. What else, then?

mechatrocity 5y ago

I agree it's frustrating. I'm a Software Safety PEng that does alot of compliance and standards work, and safety validation. My company is good about delineating between engineering and developers... But very few orgs outside of safety critical industries care at all

bsder 5y ago

And it's not even if you have a PE (Professional Engineering) license. For example, all the VLSI designs I've worked on had "design reviews". Always. And generally you had to pass several layers of automated design reviews before you could get to the layer of having a human review it. Why do software people think other fields all suck as much as software development?

Twixes 5y ago

It's entirely accurate - software development is a branch of engineering. The name doesn't come from a literal "engine" (though the origin is the same), it means "someone who contrives contraptions".

david-gpu 5y ago

> Can we stop calling programmers Engineers? I still find this sentiment hurtful after all these years. It comes across as demeaning of my credentials and my work. Let's start with my degree. My master's degree reads "Informatics Engineer", a title that was approved at the national level by the EU country where I graduated. That alone should be sufficient in my opinion. Degrees don't matter? What about people? When the exact work I do is performed by "true Engineers" then does that make it true enfineering? Most of my co-workers are Electronics Engineers and while they perform the same tasks I do, I have yet to see anybody question their worth. Or perhaps my colleagues may be true Engineers, but the work they are doing is mere programming, as evidenced by a simple programmer like me doing it. Maybe it's the processes we follow that matter. True engineering work involves design, documentation and review processes, after all. Well, the processes we follow come directly from EE best practices because that's the nature of the work we do (computer architecture). Software engineering also has its own similar design processes tailored to their needs. Not significantly different, I must say. Maybe it's not the accreditation, the people or the processes. Perhaps the demarcation between engineering and programming is in the systems we design. They must be designs worthy of being patented, systems so important that people's lives are at risk if they malfunction. I have a dozen patents -- none of them in software. I have worked on safety critical systems where death and dismemberment were expected consequences of malfunction. What else, then?