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Not a downside per se, but I wonder how, in the context of other engineering disciplines which are highly formalized, software engineering fits in. One of the t

Not a downside per se, but I wonder how, in the context of other engineering disciplines which are highly formalized, software engineering fits in. One of the typical arguments against the feasibility of formalizing and licensing software engineers as PEs (in the USA) is that the stuff we create "cannot kill anyone" unlike, for example, a civil engineer whose work is very structured and vetted.

EEBio 5y ago
Don't get confused - unlike many software engineering branches, the medical one is highly regulated. Take a look at Medical Device Regulation, which sets out standards for medical devices - software included (in fact, any medical software is automatically considered an active medical device). The demand for supervision is so high, there are now third party companies (Notified Bodies) taking care of the approvals. They are appointed by their respective Certification Authorities (which are governmental organisations). The approval usually works in the way where the manufacturer classifies the device and performs all the necessary tests and submits the documentation to the Notified Bodies where they verify that the device is correctly classified and all the necessary tests for the given class of the device have been performed and that the documentation checks out. MDR: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/medical-devices https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/medic...
wheelinsupial 5y ago
There was a PE exam for software engineering in the USA, so I think it is possible to formalize the field for practice. Whether or not that formalization appeals to practitioners is another discussion. In 2019, the PE software exam was discontinued: https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineering-exam/ https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...

EEBio 5y ago

Don't get confused - unlike many software engineering branches, the medical one is highly regulated. Take a look at Medical Device Regulation, which sets out standards for medical devices - software included (in fact, any medical software is automatically considered an active medical device). The demand for supervision is so high, there are now third party companies (Notified Bodies) taking care of the approvals. They are appointed by their respective Certification Authorities (which are governmental organisations). The approval usually works in the way where the manufacturer classifies the device and performs all the necessary tests and submits the documentation to the Notified Bodies where they verify that the device is correctly classified and all the necessary tests for the given class of the device have been performed and that the documentation checks out. MDR: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/medical-devices https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/medic...

wheelinsupial 5y ago

There was a PE exam for software engineering in the USA, so I think it is possible to formalize the field for practice. Whether or not that formalization appeals to practitioners is another discussion. In 2019, the PE software exam was discontinued: https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineering-exam/ https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...