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Thanks for reminding us that there are only a few real engineering professions. Reminds me of the Hemingway quote that there only three real sports: Motorracing

by jcfrei 3y ago

Thanks for reminding us that there are only a few real engineering professions. Reminds me of the Hemingway quote that there only three real sports: Motorracing, mountaineering and bull fighting - the rest are just games. No seriously that kind of gate keeping is just ridiculous.

TapWaterBandit 3y ago
Out of curiosity, what is your definition of "engineering" and "engineer"? Genuine question, I am not an engineer nor in any sort of role that could plausibly be considered engineering.
idontreadtheop 3y ago
It’s also a totally borked analogy. In software the spec is usually the carpentry equivalent of “build a house. Must have door”. Building a house takes engineering (e.g. structural). It also takes carpenters and plumbers and so on. What’s fun about software is you get to do all of it on one project.
zamnos 3y ago
Is it? Are you legally culpable in the case that your software kills or maims somebody? Because a civil engineer is, if the bridge they built falls down. Is there a license you need to practice writing software, that can be revoked and prevent you from writing more software if you're caught writing software with gross negligence, leading to it getting hacked? Because other engineering disciplines are held to those kinds of standards. Words mean things, and if we want to consider "software engineer" as anything more than title inflation, it should mean more than just a programmer who's full of themselves. If I shit out a webapp that's crashes if you look at it funny, that shouldn't be considered software engineering because it's a pile of shit that barely works. If I make a webapp that actually gives useful error messages to users and is robust in the face of failure and is maintainable and someone else would want to touch my code, then we're starting to get somewhere.
voidhorse 3y ago
A society that elects to apply an existing term to cases in which it doesn't quite fit indicates the society is linguistically bankrupt. I'd argue that, instead of calling every profession "engineering" we ought to come up with more precise distinctions and designations. Let's be honest, the main reason so many people glom on to the term "engineer" is because (as others have mentioned) the rigorous processes around licensing for other engineering disciplines keeps supply low, which attaches an inherent market value to the term. People then adopt the term without justification in the hope if nets them a pay raise. We ought to accept that it's OK not to be an engineer. Other professions are also valuable. It's also important to "gatekeep" meanings of words to a certain extent lest we think it wise to accept a language in which any word can mean anything.

by jcfrei 3y ago

TapWaterBandit 3y ago

Out of curiosity, what is your definition of "engineering" and "engineer"? Genuine question, I am not an engineer nor in any sort of role that could plausibly be considered engineering.

idontreadtheop 3y ago

It’s also a totally borked analogy. In software the spec is usually the carpentry equivalent of “build a house. Must have door”. Building a house takes engineering (e.g. structural). It also takes carpenters and plumbers and so on. What’s fun about software is you get to do all of it on one project.

zamnos 3y ago

Is it? Are you legally culpable in the case that your software kills or maims somebody? Because a civil engineer is, if the bridge they built falls down. Is there a license you need to practice writing software, that can be revoked and prevent you from writing more software if you're caught writing software with gross negligence, leading to it getting hacked? Because other engineering disciplines are held to those kinds of standards. Words mean things, and if we want to consider "software engineer" as anything more than title inflation, it should mean more than just a programmer who's full of themselves. If I shit out a webapp that's crashes if you look at it funny, that shouldn't be considered software engineering because it's a pile of shit that barely works. If I make a webapp that actually gives useful error messages to users and is robust in the face of failure and is maintainable and someone else would want to touch my code, then we're starting to get somewhere.

voidhorse 3y ago

A society that elects to apply an existing term to cases in which it doesn't quite fit indicates the society is linguistically bankrupt. I'd argue that, instead of calling every profession "engineering" we ought to come up with more precise distinctions and designations. Let's be honest, the main reason so many people glom on to the term "engineer" is because (as others have mentioned) the rigorous processes around licensing for other engineering disciplines keeps supply low, which attaches an inherent market value to the term. People then adopt the term without justification in the hope if nets them a pay raise. We ought to accept that it's OK not to be an engineer. Other professions are also valuable. It's also important to "gatekeep" meanings of words to a certain extent lest we think it wise to accept a language in which any word can mean anything.