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I've worked with a bunch of engineers, and while I respect and admire them tremendously, I'd not want to be lumped in with the kind of code they generally write

I've worked with a bunch of engineers, and while I respect and admire them tremendously, I'd not want to be lumped in with the kind of code they generally write. And don't get me started on the typical code a scientist writes! Let the downvotes commence. Edit: This is a gentle ribbing, but there really does seem to be a different approach in the philosophy of how to solve a problem. Engineers seem to eschew abstraction while software folks embrace is (sometimes to a fault). It's actually pretty fascinating.

nicce 4y ago
Very odd. Usually engineers love abstraction where I am coming from. The simpler the solution, better it usually is. Helps understanding the whole system, making it less complex. Simplicity causes less bugs. Of course, you can do too much abstraction.
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  Have you never run into Matlab code with a few hundred global variables mutating frequently? :)
  - nicce 4y ago
    Okay. I was referreing into software engineers, not data engineers :-)
    - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
      Ah, I was referring to general engineers, like chemical or mech engineers :)
bee_rider 4y ago
If they wanted to built their own abstractions they’d be scientists. Actually this is one thing that has always confused me about “software engineers,” at least as someone with an engineering education who isn’t doing engineering work really: we learned how to do particular types of problems very well and reliably, and generally learned a bunch of math tricks. But at a fundamental level the material that the physics students were learning was basically more complicated. Scientist has always felt like a more prestigious title to me. Since most programmers have computer science degrees, why don’t we call ourselves computer scientists?
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Since most programmers have computer science degrees, why don’t we call ourselves computer scientists? Because they aren’t doing scientific research, they are applying the products of such research to design (and build; with software the distinction is less significant than with many physical items) products, so its somewhere between architecture/engineering and constructiom, rather than science.

nicce 4y ago

Very odd. Usually engineers love abstraction where I am coming from. The simpler the solution, better it usually is. Helps understanding the whole system, making it less complex. Simplicity causes less bugs. Of course, you can do too much abstraction.

cscurmudgeon 4y ago
Have you never run into Matlab code with a few hundred global variables mutating frequently? :)
- nicce 4y ago
  Okay. I was referreing into software engineers, not data engineers :-)
  - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
    Ah, I was referring to general engineers, like chemical or mech engineers :)

bee_rider 4y ago

If they wanted to built their own abstractions they’d be scientists. Actually this is one thing that has always confused me about “software engineers,” at least as someone with an engineering education who isn’t doing engineering work really: we learned how to do particular types of problems very well and reliably, and generally learned a bunch of math tricks. But at a fundamental level the material that the physics students were learning was basically more complicated. Scientist has always felt like a more prestigious title to me. Since most programmers have computer science degrees, why don’t we call ourselves computer scientists?

dragonwriter 4y ago
> Since most programmers have computer science degrees, why don’t we call ourselves computer scientists? Because they aren’t doing scientific research, they are applying the products of such research to design (and build; with software the distinction is less significant than with many physical items) products, so its somewhere between architecture/engineering and constructiom, rather than science.