Indeed, and you are touching on a subject I think about regularly: I don’t know first-hand what most engineering disciplines are like, but I believe that much o

Indeed, and you are touching on a subject I think about regularly: I don’t know first-hand what most engineering disciplines are like, but I believe that much of software development is not engineering at all. Instead it is slapdash and haphazard. Codebases very frequently grow by accretion rather than design as convoluted patches are laid on top of already byzantine systems. There is often little forethought; rarely is serious consideration given to the maintainability, soundness, and security of the work we do, let alone the consequences of it to society at large. I believe that software engineering is possible; I believe that I have seen it done and taken part in it. But in general, a scrappy, pivoting startup does not embrace anything approaching engineering practices. I wish this were more accepted and I think we can start by calling it software development instead of software engineering. Our industry is still in its infancy but it has a huge impact on society. I would like to see more engineering in the industry, but I feel a very short-sighted approach to maximizing profit precludes this. I fear that until we have more death and more loss incurred by poor development practices it will not be the norm to practice true software engineering. Thank you for bringing up this point.