I think engineering is an attitude. Disclosure: I'm not an engineer, but a scientist working among engineers. Historically, we got away with letting engineeri

I think engineering is an attitude. Disclosure: I'm not an engineer, but a scientist working among engineers. Historically, we got away with letting engineering be defined by the curricula and credentialing of the traditional engineering disciplines such as civil, electrical, and so forth. And by the cultures of companies that did engineering well. It was hard enough, and took long enough, that a shared culture tended to rub off on people without needing to define it. One tradition was that an "engineer" was qualified to approve a design, with some authority and responsibility for the outcome. Partly as a way to increase the number of engineers in the mid 20th century, engineering adopted an "engineering handbook" approach, where engineers learned how to choose and apply standard formulas for solving specific kinds of problems, such as sizing pipes, wiring, and so forth. More recently, this is being gradually replaced by the use of high level software tools such as electrical and mechanical modeling. Engineers are reluctant to let testing alone be a criterion for approval of a design. Software is too new to have such a history, and admits of a much wider variety of entry routes. It may be too early to know what software engineering consists of.