17 ms·

I'm retiring from the engineering profession

266 points by ThatGeoGuy 4y ago

trinovantes 4y ago
Outside of Ontario Canada, I'm glad "software engineer" is not a regulated title. Imagine having a contrarian opinion on design patterns and then getting your livelihood threatened.
- deleted 4y ago
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- light_hue_1 4y ago
  It's not just Ontario. It's pretty much all of Canada. Everyone should be careful about this. Quebec's equivalent of PEO (Professional Engineers Ontario) is the OIQ (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec). People in Ontario and Quebec have gotten nasty letters threatening legal action even for saying they're software engineers on Linkedin. Microsoft fought the law in Quebec and lost. Alberta, BC, and even New Brunswick have similar laws. Other provinces might too.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >People in Ontario and Quebec have gotten nasty letters threatening legal action even for saying they're software engineers on Linkedin. Seriously? Are the engineering licensing organizations really scouring linkedin for people calling themselves "engineers, and sending threatening letters to anyone who's not on their list?
    - jbay808 4y ago
      Yes.
    - lesam 4y ago
      Yes. When I worked in Quebec (around 2017) the company got a reminder from OIQ that employees should not call themselves Engineers on LinkedIn unless they had a P.Eng. The Engineer title is taken seriously in Canada, similar to how you can’t claim to be a medical doctor unless you actually are one.
  - oceanplexian 4y ago
    Governments are like Religions. Every one of them arrogantly thinks their way is the superior way to do things (Across all sides of the political spectrum), despite the existence of contradictory governments with perfectly functioning, and sometimes better functioning societies. For some reason it seems like the Internet pisses governments off of all stripes, since a Global, free, meritocracy where everyone can compete on an equal playing field is like giving them the finger. And while governments can keep a tight leash on their own citizens with rules and regulations, they can’t make the rest of the world do whatever crazy nonsense they feel like. In this example, Canada will just be left behind in the 21st Century economy.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > a Global, free, meritocracy where everyone can compete on an equal playing field I don't see the Internet this way at all. While the above was a dream of Internet pioneers, now it's mostly fraud, mis- and disinformation campaigns, and parties using their power to dominate the marketplace. > Every one of them arrogantly thinks their way is the superior way to do things (Across all sides of the political spectrum), despite the existence of contradictory governments with perfectly functioning, and sometimes better functioning societies. That's ironcially similar to the parent comment, and a good example of what is on the Internet. Instead of facts, serious questions and analysis, it relies on trying to create a tide of emotion.
    - pbourke 4y ago
      The job title is just “developer” or “programmer” rather than “engineer”. Not a big deal.
    - throw0101a 4y ago
      > meritocracy You may wish to examine this concept more closely before thinking it is a completely good idea. Specifically see the book The meritocracy trap by Markovits: * https://www.themeritocracytrap.com https://www.themeritocracytrap.com * https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-miserable-winners/594760/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritoc... * https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20919030/meritocracy-book-daniel-markovits-inequality-rich https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20919030/...
- hlieberman 4y ago
  Quebec also, as well as Texas for a couple of years.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  "Developer with an engineering degree" is a reasonable substitute for regimes.
- throwaway787544 4y ago
  I'm of the opposite opinion. The industry is awash in newbies with senior titles being put on software projects where they are directly responsible for safety, privacy, health care, etc. Right now when software kills people, they chock it up to a system or hardware failure. In the next decade we will hear more about software bugs killing people, outing them, bankrupting them, overturning governments, hobbling armies, and then we'll have to reckon with why regulated titles exist.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    No one can agree on what should actually be part of the regulation though. It would end up becoming a box checking exercise like security is where complying with requirements and actually being secure are unrelated. Can you imagine if governments regulated something like if your code touches important data, it must either be written in a verified safe language like Rust? How would people feel about that? Regular engineering is a lot easier to regulate because there are a lot of agreeable rules like “fire escape stairs need to be x cm wide with a step depth of z cm. And there is no situational context that needs to be taken in to account. While all programming best practices are vague helpers that should be discarded as soon as they aren’t helping.
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      > Can you imagine if governments regulated something like if your code touches important data, it must either be written in a verified safe language like Rust? How would people feel about that? Considering the history of memory-not-safe bugs and exploits and the efforts to rewrite critical things in rust due to memory safety I imagine this could be a real debate. In the “real world” we have requirements for materials and tools and practices because some are less safe. Imagine if a building was welded with a technique that could fail? We’d legislate away from that technique. Even when people say “there are ways to make unsafe welding ‘safe enough’”. Software could maybe use some rigor even if it means “go slow and don’t break things”.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
- VerminOctopus1 4y ago
  Is software engineer a regulated title in Ontario? I’m working here, as a software engineer (remotely mind you), and have no special credential…
  - wheelinsupial 4y ago
    I think so... but I'm neither a lawyer nor an engineer... "PEO considers non-licensed use of “Software Engineer” to be a violation of our Act." https://www.peo.on.ca/public-protection/complaints-and-illegal-practice/report-unlicensed-individuals-or-companies-2#software https://www.peo.on.ca/public-protection/complaints-and-illeg...
pdonis 4y ago
From the article: "Claims that the title “Professional Engineer” and the initials “PE” are a trade name, the very use of which constitutes commercial speech in any circumstance, is inconsistent with how I understand my vocation. I suspect most of my fellow licensees similarly consider themselves public servants, not commercial entities whose competitive privilege is protected by a state cartel." While I understand his complaint here, I'm afraid his implicit factual claim is false: any profession that depends on the government to license its members is in fact a "commercial entity whose competitive privilege is protected by a state cartel". If Professional Engineers really want to be "public servants", the best way for them to do that, ironically, is to have their own private licensing body that applies its own independent, objective standards and cannot be used by governments as political tools.
- infogulch 4y ago
  You're missing the forest for a piece of bark on a tree. His point is that engineering licensing boards should be more than just a government-sponsored cartel for rubber stamping conforming license requests, and practitioners should do more than just validate that projects meet the required specifications according to accepted standards, but that the industry -- from individuals to institutions -- should also operate with an ethical and moral imperative to learn and improve and grow the discipline at the current edge of its domain of competence. If "accepted standards" are shown to be wrong then it's not good enough to continue using them, as if the legal indemnification provided by standing behind an "accepted standard" is the only thing that matters.
  - tbrownaw 4y ago
    Doesn't that already happen though? A bridge fails due to water hanging from the cables making them asymmetric and coupling wind energy into bridge oscillation, and cables get redesigned with a spiral thingy to prevent that in the future. Asbestos turns out to cause cancer, and suddenly it's no longer an allowed building material. Or whatever.
    - infogulch 4y ago
roenxi 4y ago
I think this situation is unpleasant and there are losers with no winners. That being said, I can see the perspective of the licensing board. Presumably the point of the PE title is a reliable stamp that means "this person is a solid, educated, experienced and politically neutral individual who will keep your buildings standing". It isn't appropriate for engineers to weigh in on political questions about how people should live their lives in their professional capacity. This is a lesson I suspect the software semi-engineering profession will learn when the cost of the political battles Silicon Valley is engaged in start to come due. Much like in religious contexts "be good" somehow morphs into "spill blood" when people try to control what others can and cannot do. Engineers should not go anywhere close to even the outskirts of that fight. Whoever wins it deserves a functioning, well engineered society. Strong Towns is cool with me, but it is a political project trying to do good. That sits in tension with professional engineering. Engineers do good, but not with activism.
- stefan_ 4y ago
  The world sure would be easy if we could just label what street designers do as "engineering work beyond redoubt" and every opposition as "[political] activism". But of course it isn't. It is long known that making oversized streets encourages speeding. Yet they keep designing them oversized. It is well researched that "sharrows" do nothing. Yet they keep painting them. Their work is not that of engineers, it's work from guidelines that are of course the result of politics first and foremost.
  - goodluckchuck 4y ago
    Politics is war, and everything is politics.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      That's not reality. Societies and people often cooperate for the greater good, often through government.
      - 4y ago
celdon25 4y ago
[flagged]
- ehnto 4y ago
  If only there were a website full of exactly this information, but I suppose there isn't. This person is an evangelist for change in the way we build cities, and if we boil it down, the story here is that it is hard to maintain your profession and activism in some industries.
  - tbrownaw 4y ago
    Maybe? Or it could be that stepping on toes makes it important to keep all your I's crossed and your T's dotted. Or it could be that using your status in non-standard ways (like to give weight to activism) is still using it and means you need to keep it up. Or it could be that power corrupts and authorities need to be sued every so often to keep them honest.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Granted I only clicked through to three links, but I can’t find what this person actually stands for or what their opponents object to. It’s just conflict without content as far as I can find. Why should I care about this? There’s a cause but I don’t understand what it is.
- klodolph 4y ago
  The author's engineering license lapsed in 2018, in 2020 he realized it had lapsed, so he renewed it and paid a late fee. He's being asked to pay a fine, take an ethics course, and admit to dishonesty--because during the period when the license was lapsed, he still put "professional engineer" after his name. It sounds like this is happening because some people are mad at him, and not because this is a serious violation that a licensing board would ordinarily punish.
  - tbrownaw 4y ago
    We are hearing only one side of things here. I could just as easily read that as someone who no longer practices using their license to give weight to their activism, and then it turns out they didn't even bother to actually keep up that license that they were using to get people to listen to them. If guess it probably mostly depends on if your think the lapsed license is a legitimate accident or a sign of indifference. Assuming the board is in fact usually forgiving on lapses as is suggested here.
    - trgn 4y ago
      It's because he is critical of the work of his peers. Forcing someone to admit to dishonesty is a petty abuse of power. The board is effectively compelling him to grovel. "It's easy to find a stick to beat a dog" "Show me the man, I'll show you the crime"
- tbrownaw 4y ago
  Well there is an "about" page, linked from the header in desktop or hidden in the "+" menu on mobile. Their articles have shown up here a fair few times, which I assume is part of what makes it interesting.
reagle 4y ago
Read his excellent book Confessions. Because he criticizes unethical/corrupt engineering practices his enemies say he is bringing ill repute upon the profession and violating the terms of his license.
buzzy_hacker 4y ago
For those new to Strong Towns, I feel this article is most representative of what they’re about: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme
- labrador 4y ago
  I'm skeptical that things are as bad as this article states.
  - forum_ghost 4y ago
    The idea is that we just don't have enough productivity to sustain slightly longer roads, and live in the same houses we used to have on farms in 1920s is insulting to reader's intelligence. This is just another piece of luddite alarmism. Always Remember: the situation is SO DIRE, we had to exempt private jets from the fuel tax. Even billionaires simply can't afford to pay gas taxes, this is how bad things are /s: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-09/private-jets-amazon-orders-set-to-escape-higher-eu-energy-taxes https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-09/private-j... Meanwhile the city of Austin debt service is 5% of its budget, and Austin's debt per capita is $1,287. Some Ponzi.
    - x3iv130f 4y ago
      Sure, we can just keep on increasing taxes until all the top earners leave for cheaper areas. I prefer low taxes. What's there to lose by building towns at a human scale? Personally, I can live without Fauxrari speeding past my door at 2 am.
      - pmoriarty 4y ago
        Tax Flight Is a Myth: Higher State Taxes Bring More Revenue, Not More Migration: https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/tax-flight-is-a-myth https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/tax-fligh...
midislack 4y ago
I just "say" I'm an engineer like all the coders here. I don't hold a certification nor do I have an engineering degree. But I sure enjoy saying I'm an engineer. Like many of you fellow coders I'm getting close to claiming I'm a doctor too. Just call me Dr. Code. I have a license to precribe additional billable hours.
- pstuart 4y ago
  I'm a data plumber -- bits go through pipes and into buckets.
  - throwamon 4y ago
    I'm a garbage collector, at least when coding in C.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Work gave us all tshirts that say “company name - Engineering”. I do enjoy walking around with it and people assuming I do something more interesting than working on ad tech.
- Hamuko 4y ago
  >I just "say" I'm an engineer like all the coders here. I work as a coder and actually have a bachelor's degree in information and communication technologies, so I've never really had any qualms about calling myself a software engineer.
  - personaenon 4y ago
    You should, you DO NOT have an engineering degree....
    - Hamuko 4y ago
      But I do. My degree is Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng). I'm even a member of the Union of Professional Engineers.
2b3a51 4y ago
UK around 9:24 BST the link (and the strongtowns.org domain) is giving a certificate error. I've tried several different Internet connections (I'm on the mobile network and there can be issues sometimes) including links from my shell account on a shared server. One device says "No OCSP Response" and the mobile broadband connection thinks the site contains adult content. Links just says 'ssl error'. So I archived the page so as to be able to read it... https://archive.ph/hAKsX https://archive.ph/hAKsX Back on topic: I've heard of 'code of conduct' type cases being used in the days of the General Teaching Council in HR type disputes, not routine but apparently local union professionals had a case load. The GTC was abolished in 2010, and the teaching unions had a role in that.
h2odragon 4y ago
I suppose he must call himself "Pirate Engineer" now.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Texas may have a lot of f'd things about their laws, but one thing that they do very well is their "sunset commission". I think it's every 12 years or so, every department/licensure organization comes up for review, and they basically need to re-explain why they should exist. The idea is to prevent these organizations that turn into little fiefdoms to protect their own power. A couple years ago the state veterinary board sued an Austin animal shelter leader and no-kill advocate and tried to have her license revoked. The sunset commission reamed them a new one, pointing out the absurdity of them going after a nonprofit leader while they had a major problem with vet drug abuse that they weren't handling. IIRC the majority of the vet board ended up resigning.
- deleted 4y ago
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- Yoofie 4y ago
  The sunset commission is a great idea. Similar to what you mentioned, we really need "garbage collection" for for laws, regulation, boards, departments, etc. A periodic review and cleanup of legal and organizational garbage.
burlesona 4y ago
Hi HN, I’m the board chair at Strong Towns[1]. I normally lay low on these topics but I'm seeing some incorrect info among the top comments, so I wanted to respond to a few things. - - - - - 1. What is this all about? Chuck is a licensed PE in Minnesota, and has maintained his license for years even though he was working in advocacy, not practicing engineering. There's busy work to keep a license active. Chuck accidentally missed filing a renewal form and paying a fee in 2018, but continued all other requirements, such as taking required CE classes. This is actually so common that there's a simple procedure for late filing with the state. Chuck filed and paid his late fees, and the state renewed his license with no comment. About six weeks _after_ renewing his license, the state filed a complaint against Chuck accusing him of committing fraud because his bio on our website said he was a "professional engineer" during a window of time when his renewal was late. There's no precedent for this. There are many PE's actually practicing engineering and signing documents with overdue renewal forms every year. They file late and get renewed with no issue. During negotiations with the state, their comments made it clear the licensing board is seeking to use their power to discredit and silence Chuck's advocacy, hence the ongoing lawsuit to defend Chuck's right to free speech. (Longer version here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/5/23/lawsuit https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/5/23/lawsuit) The linked article explains why Chuck is now choosing to move his license to "retired" status in 2022 rather than renew it again. - - - - - 2. What is Strong Towns all about? I've seen several comments here suggesting we're some kind of anti-car environmental thing, which is not correct. Strong Towns is principally focused on municipal fiscal and economic health. We work with cities and towns that are struggling to keep the lights on and provide basic, functional services, and try to help them (a) understand how they got into the mess they're in, and (b) get out of it. This connects with cars because the status quo in the US is as follows: typically the federal and state governments offer lots of funding for new roadways and roadway expansion for economic development purposes, but don't cover maintenance. Many cities have much more infrastructure to maintain than their tax base can support, and also weak growth, so expansion is a bad idea. Nevertheless, cities usually seek and receive expansion road expansions because, culturally, we expect building more roads to make us more wealthy, and don't really question whether we're over-building or whether new / expanded roads will pay off. Thus we advocate ending highway expansion (in most cases), and advocate better utilizing our existing infrastructure. We are pro-walkability because walkable places are infrastructure efficient, therefore cost-effective and wealth-creating, which correlates with the outcomes we care about. We also care a lot about transparency in municipal accounting, safe streets, housing, and removing unnecessary regulation (in particular parking mandates and certain kinds of zoning). - - - - - It's Sunday and I'm headed out with my family, but I'll check in on this a bit and try to answer questions if you all have any. [1]: https://www.strongtowns.org/board https://www.strongtowns.org/board
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
Good for Charles Marohn! You will see who is on your side when things fall apart. Suburbans sprawl has weakened towns, as has the Richard Florida mindset of attracting specific people to create an unsustainable economy.

266 points by ThatGeoGuy 4y ago

Outside of Ontario Canada, I'm glad "software engineer" is not a regulated title. Imagine having a contrarian opinion on design patterns and then getting your livelihood threatened.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
light_hue_1 4y ago
It's not just Ontario. It's pretty much all of Canada. Everyone should be careful about this. Quebec's equivalent of PEO (Professional Engineers Ontario) is the OIQ (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec). People in Ontario and Quebec have gotten nasty letters threatening legal action even for saying they're software engineers on Linkedin. Microsoft fought the law in Quebec and lost. Alberta, BC, and even New Brunswick have similar laws. Other provinces might too.
- gruez 4y ago
  >People in Ontario and Quebec have gotten nasty letters threatening legal action even for saying they're software engineers on Linkedin. Seriously? Are the engineering licensing organizations really scouring linkedin for people calling themselves "engineers, and sending threatening letters to anyone who's not on their list?
  - jbay808 4y ago
    Yes.
  - lesam 4y ago
    Yes. When I worked in Quebec (around 2017) the company got a reminder from OIQ that employees should not call themselves Engineers on LinkedIn unless they had a P.Eng. The Engineer title is taken seriously in Canada, similar to how you can’t claim to be a medical doctor unless you actually are one.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  Governments are like Religions. Every one of them arrogantly thinks their way is the superior way to do things (Across all sides of the political spectrum), despite the existence of contradictory governments with perfectly functioning, and sometimes better functioning societies. For some reason it seems like the Internet pisses governments off of all stripes, since a Global, free, meritocracy where everyone can compete on an equal playing field is like giving them the finger. And while governments can keep a tight leash on their own citizens with rules and regulations, they can’t make the rest of the world do whatever crazy nonsense they feel like. In this example, Canada will just be left behind in the 21st Century economy.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    > a Global, free, meritocracy where everyone can compete on an equal playing field I don't see the Internet this way at all. While the above was a dream of Internet pioneers, now it's mostly fraud, mis- and disinformation campaigns, and parties using their power to dominate the marketplace. > Every one of them arrogantly thinks their way is the superior way to do things (Across all sides of the political spectrum), despite the existence of contradictory governments with perfectly functioning, and sometimes better functioning societies. That's ironcially similar to the parent comment, and a good example of what is on the Internet. Instead of facts, serious questions and analysis, it relies on trying to create a tide of emotion.
  - pbourke 4y ago
    The job title is just “developer” or “programmer” rather than “engineer”. Not a big deal.
  - throw0101a 4y ago
    > meritocracy You may wish to examine this concept more closely before thinking it is a completely good idea. Specifically see the book The meritocracy trap by Markovits: * https://www.themeritocracytrap.com https://www.themeritocracytrap.com * https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-miserable-winners/594760/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritoc... * https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20919030/meritocracy-book-daniel-markovits-inequality-rich https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20919030/...
hlieberman 4y ago
Quebec also, as well as Texas for a couple of years.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
"Developer with an engineering degree" is a reasonable substitute for regimes.
throwaway787544 4y ago
I'm of the opposite opinion. The industry is awash in newbies with senior titles being put on software projects where they are directly responsible for safety, privacy, health care, etc. Right now when software kills people, they chock it up to a system or hardware failure. In the next decade we will hear more about software bugs killing people, outing them, bankrupting them, overturning governments, hobbling armies, and then we'll have to reckon with why regulated titles exist.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  No one can agree on what should actually be part of the regulation though. It would end up becoming a box checking exercise like security is where complying with requirements and actually being secure are unrelated. Can you imagine if governments regulated something like if your code touches important data, it must either be written in a verified safe language like Rust? How would people feel about that? Regular engineering is a lot easier to regulate because there are a lot of agreeable rules like “fire escape stairs need to be x cm wide with a step depth of z cm. And there is no situational context that needs to be taken in to account. While all programming best practices are vague helpers that should be discarded as soon as they aren’t helping.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    > Can you imagine if governments regulated something like if your code touches important data, it must either be written in a verified safe language like Rust? How would people feel about that? Considering the history of memory-not-safe bugs and exploits and the efforts to rewrite critical things in rust due to memory safety I imagine this could be a real debate. In the “real world” we have requirements for materials and tools and practices because some are less safe. Imagine if a building was welded with a technique that could fail? We’d legislate away from that technique. Even when people say “there are ways to make unsafe welding ‘safe enough’”. Software could maybe use some rigor even if it means “go slow and don’t break things”.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
VerminOctopus1 4y ago
Is software engineer a regulated title in Ontario? I’m working here, as a software engineer (remotely mind you), and have no special credential…
- wheelinsupial 4y ago
  I think so... but I'm neither a lawyer nor an engineer... "PEO considers non-licensed use of “Software Engineer” to be a violation of our Act." https://www.peo.on.ca/public-protection/complaints-and-illegal-practice/report-unlicensed-individuals-or-companies-2#software https://www.peo.on.ca/public-protection/complaints-and-illeg...

pdonis 4y ago

From the article: "Claims that the title “Professional Engineer” and the initials “PE” are a trade name, the very use of which constitutes commercial speech in any circumstance, is inconsistent with how I understand my vocation. I suspect most of my fellow licensees similarly consider themselves public servants, not commercial entities whose competitive privilege is protected by a state cartel." While I understand his complaint here, I'm afraid his implicit factual claim is false: any profession that depends on the government to license its members is in fact a "commercial entity whose competitive privilege is protected by a state cartel". If Professional Engineers really want to be "public servants", the best way for them to do that, ironically, is to have their own private licensing body that applies its own independent, objective standards and cannot be used by governments as political tools.

infogulch 4y ago
You're missing the forest for a piece of bark on a tree. His point is that engineering licensing boards should be more than just a government-sponsored cartel for rubber stamping conforming license requests, and practitioners should do more than just validate that projects meet the required specifications according to accepted standards, but that the industry -- from individuals to institutions -- should also operate with an ethical and moral imperative to learn and improve and grow the discipline at the current edge of its domain of competence. If "accepted standards" are shown to be wrong then it's not good enough to continue using them, as if the legal indemnification provided by standing behind an "accepted standard" is the only thing that matters.
- tbrownaw 4y ago
  Doesn't that already happen though? A bridge fails due to water hanging from the cables making them asymmetric and coupling wind energy into bridge oscillation, and cables get redesigned with a spiral thingy to prevent that in the future. Asbestos turns out to cause cancer, and suddenly it's no longer an allowed building material. Or whatever.
  - infogulch 4y ago

roenxi 4y ago

I think this situation is unpleasant and there are losers with no winners. That being said, I can see the perspective of the licensing board. Presumably the point of the PE title is a reliable stamp that means "this person is a solid, educated, experienced and politically neutral individual who will keep your buildings standing". It isn't appropriate for engineers to weigh in on political questions about how people should live their lives in their professional capacity. This is a lesson I suspect the software semi-engineering profession will learn when the cost of the political battles Silicon Valley is engaged in start to come due. Much like in religious contexts "be good" somehow morphs into "spill blood" when people try to control what others can and cannot do. Engineers should not go anywhere close to even the outskirts of that fight. Whoever wins it deserves a functioning, well engineered society. Strong Towns is cool with me, but it is a political project trying to do good. That sits in tension with professional engineering. Engineers do good, but not with activism.

stefan_ 4y ago
The world sure would be easy if we could just label what street designers do as "engineering work beyond redoubt" and every opposition as "[political] activism". But of course it isn't. It is long known that making oversized streets encourages speeding. Yet they keep designing them oversized. It is well researched that "sharrows" do nothing. Yet they keep painting them. Their work is not that of engineers, it's work from guidelines that are of course the result of politics first and foremost.
- goodluckchuck 4y ago
  Politics is war, and everything is politics.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    That's not reality. Societies and people often cooperate for the greater good, often through government.
    - 4y ago

celdon25 4y ago

[flagged]

ehnto 4y ago
If only there were a website full of exactly this information, but I suppose there isn't. This person is an evangelist for change in the way we build cities, and if we boil it down, the story here is that it is hard to maintain your profession and activism in some industries.
- tbrownaw 4y ago
  Maybe? Or it could be that stepping on toes makes it important to keep all your I's crossed and your T's dotted. Or it could be that using your status in non-standard ways (like to give weight to activism) is still using it and means you need to keep it up. Or it could be that power corrupts and authorities need to be sued every so often to keep them honest.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

Granted I only clicked through to three links, but I can’t find what this person actually stands for or what their opponents object to. It’s just conflict without content as far as I can find. Why should I care about this? There’s a cause but I don’t understand what it is.

klodolph 4y ago
The author's engineering license lapsed in 2018, in 2020 he realized it had lapsed, so he renewed it and paid a late fee. He's being asked to pay a fine, take an ethics course, and admit to dishonesty--because during the period when the license was lapsed, he still put "professional engineer" after his name. It sounds like this is happening because some people are mad at him, and not because this is a serious violation that a licensing board would ordinarily punish.
- tbrownaw 4y ago
  We are hearing only one side of things here. I could just as easily read that as someone who no longer practices using their license to give weight to their activism, and then it turns out they didn't even bother to actually keep up that license that they were using to get people to listen to them. If guess it probably mostly depends on if your think the lapsed license is a legitimate accident or a sign of indifference. Assuming the board is in fact usually forgiving on lapses as is suggested here.
  - trgn 4y ago
    It's because he is critical of the work of his peers. Forcing someone to admit to dishonesty is a petty abuse of power. The board is effectively compelling him to grovel. "It's easy to find a stick to beat a dog" "Show me the man, I'll show you the crime"
tbrownaw 4y ago
Well there is an "about" page, linked from the header in desktop or hidden in the "+" menu on mobile. Their articles have shown up here a fair few times, which I assume is part of what makes it interesting.

reagle 4y ago

Read his excellent book Confessions. Because he criticizes unethical/corrupt engineering practices his enemies say he is bringing ill repute upon the profession and violating the terms of his license.

buzzy_hacker 4y ago

For those new to Strong Towns, I feel this article is most representative of what they’re about: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme

labrador 4y ago
I'm skeptical that things are as bad as this article states.
- forum_ghost 4y ago
  The idea is that we just don't have enough productivity to sustain slightly longer roads, and live in the same houses we used to have on farms in 1920s is insulting to reader's intelligence. This is just another piece of luddite alarmism. Always Remember: the situation is SO DIRE, we had to exempt private jets from the fuel tax. Even billionaires simply can't afford to pay gas taxes, this is how bad things are /s: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-09/private-jets-amazon-orders-set-to-escape-higher-eu-energy-taxes https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-09/private-j... Meanwhile the city of Austin debt service is 5% of its budget, and Austin's debt per capita is $1,287. Some Ponzi.
  - x3iv130f 4y ago
    Sure, we can just keep on increasing taxes until all the top earners leave for cheaper areas. I prefer low taxes. What's there to lose by building towns at a human scale? Personally, I can live without Fauxrari speeding past my door at 2 am.
    - pmoriarty 4y ago
      Tax Flight Is a Myth: Higher State Taxes Bring More Revenue, Not More Migration: https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/tax-flight-is-a-myth https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/tax-fligh...

midislack 4y ago

I just "say" I'm an engineer like all the coders here. I don't hold a certification nor do I have an engineering degree. But I sure enjoy saying I'm an engineer. Like many of you fellow coders I'm getting close to claiming I'm a doctor too. Just call me Dr. Code. I have a license to precribe additional billable hours.

pstuart 4y ago
I'm a data plumber -- bits go through pipes and into buckets.
- throwamon 4y ago
  I'm a garbage collector, at least when coding in C.
Gigachad 4y ago
Work gave us all tshirts that say “company name - Engineering”. I do enjoy walking around with it and people assuming I do something more interesting than working on ad tech.
Hamuko 4y ago
>I just "say" I'm an engineer like all the coders here. I work as a coder and actually have a bachelor's degree in information and communication technologies, so I've never really had any qualms about calling myself a software engineer.
- personaenon 4y ago
  You should, you DO NOT have an engineering degree....
  - Hamuko 4y ago
    But I do. My degree is Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng). I'm even a member of the Union of Professional Engineers.

2b3a51 4y ago

UK around 9:24 BST the link (and the strongtowns.org domain) is giving a certificate error. I've tried several different Internet connections (I'm on the mobile network and there can be issues sometimes) including links from my shell account on a shared server. One device says "No OCSP Response" and the mobile broadband connection thinks the site contains adult content. Links just says 'ssl error'. So I archived the page so as to be able to read it... https://archive.ph/hAKsX https://archive.ph/hAKsX Back on topic: I've heard of 'code of conduct' type cases being used in the days of the General Teaching Council in HR type disputes, not routine but apparently local union professionals had a case load. The GTC was abolished in 2010, and the teaching unions had a role in that.

h2odragon 4y ago

I suppose he must call himself "Pirate Engineer" now.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

Texas may have a lot of f'd things about their laws, but one thing that they do very well is their "sunset commission". I think it's every 12 years or so, every department/licensure organization comes up for review, and they basically need to re-explain why they should exist. The idea is to prevent these organizations that turn into little fiefdoms to protect their own power. A couple years ago the state veterinary board sued an Austin animal shelter leader and no-kill advocate and tried to have her license revoked. The sunset commission reamed them a new one, pointing out the absurdity of them going after a nonprofit leader while they had a major problem with vet drug abuse that they weren't handling. IIRC the majority of the vet board ended up resigning.

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Yoofie 4y ago
The sunset commission is a great idea. Similar to what you mentioned, we really need "garbage collection" for for laws, regulation, boards, departments, etc. A periodic review and cleanup of legal and organizational garbage.

burlesona 4y ago

Hi HN, I’m the board chair at Strong Towns[1]. I normally lay low on these topics but I'm seeing some incorrect info among the top comments, so I wanted to respond to a few things. - - - - - 1. What is this all about? Chuck is a licensed PE in Minnesota, and has maintained his license for years even though he was working in advocacy, not practicing engineering. There's busy work to keep a license active. Chuck accidentally missed filing a renewal form and paying a fee in 2018, but continued all other requirements, such as taking required CE classes. This is actually so common that there's a simple procedure for late filing with the state. Chuck filed and paid his late fees, and the state renewed his license with no comment. About six weeks _after_ renewing his license, the state filed a complaint against Chuck accusing him of committing fraud because his bio on our website said he was a "professional engineer" during a window of time when his renewal was late. There's no precedent for this. There are many PE's actually practicing engineering and signing documents with overdue renewal forms every year. They file late and get renewed with no issue. During negotiations with the state, their comments made it clear the licensing board is seeking to use their power to discredit and silence Chuck's advocacy, hence the ongoing lawsuit to defend Chuck's right to free speech. (Longer version here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/5/23/lawsuit https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/5/23/lawsuit) The linked article explains why Chuck is now choosing to move his license to "retired" status in 2022 rather than renew it again. - - - - - 2. What is Strong Towns all about? I've seen several comments here suggesting we're some kind of anti-car environmental thing, which is not correct. Strong Towns is principally focused on municipal fiscal and economic health. We work with cities and towns that are struggling to keep the lights on and provide basic, functional services, and try to help them (a) understand how they got into the mess they're in, and (b) get out of it. This connects with cars because the status quo in the US is as follows: typically the federal and state governments offer lots of funding for new roadways and roadway expansion for economic development purposes, but don't cover maintenance. Many cities have much more infrastructure to maintain than their tax base can support, and also weak growth, so expansion is a bad idea. Nevertheless, cities usually seek and receive expansion road expansions because, culturally, we expect building more roads to make us more wealthy, and don't really question whether we're over-building or whether new / expanded roads will pay off. Thus we advocate ending highway expansion (in most cases), and advocate better utilizing our existing infrastructure. We are pro-walkability because walkable places are infrastructure efficient, therefore cost-effective and wealth-creating, which correlates with the outcomes we care about. We also care a lot about transparency in municipal accounting, safe streets, housing, and removing unnecessary regulation (in particular parking mandates and certain kinds of zoning). - - - - - It's Sunday and I'm headed out with my family, but I'll check in on this a bit and try to answer questions if you all have any. [1]: https://www.strongtowns.org/board https://www.strongtowns.org/board

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

Good for Charles Marohn! You will see who is on your side when things fall apart. Suburbans sprawl has weakened towns, as has the Richard Florida mindset of attracting specific people to create an unsustainable economy.