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Software engineer has always been a daft, grandiose term that seems aimed at prestige rather than reality in the majority of cases. If coders can call themselv

Software engineer has always been a daft, grandiose term that seems aimed at prestige rather than reality in the majority of cases. If coders can call themselves engineers, no reason why anybody else solving puzzles for a living can't.

groestl 3y ago
Don't want to argue against you, since the term is definitely misused for signaling a lot of things, but in a stricter sense, software engineering is not about the puzzle, it's about the whole pipeline surrounding it.
xmcqdpt2 3y ago
In my opinion, coding is a craft. As software has only existed for like 70 years, we are more like the guilds building cathedrals in the middle ages than like modern civil engineering. One day I think there will be true software engineering. When that happens you won't be able to start software projects without certifications, and most people (or programs!) who actually do the coding will be following careful plans and instructions from the engineers who designed the project. I for one am very happy software isn't fully professionalized yet!
- groestl 3y ago
  You will need a software engineer to argue in your favor before the court ;)
- tough 3y ago
  > One day I think there will be true software engineering. When that happens you won't be able to start software projects without certifications, and most people (or programs!) who actually do the coding will be following careful plans and instructions from the engineers who designed the project. Sounds really bad. Software can't fall on your head and kill you, not all of it at least. Different software should require different professionals building it. And it's usually not about the software but about the management telling the engineers to take shortcuts or whatever (Boeing comes to mind)
  - jes 3y ago
    You might enjoy this article on the Therac-25 [1]. It's kind of the standard example of how errors in software can wind up harming people. I have written medical device software for about 30 years. In my experience, delivering high quality software for Class B and Class C devices is both challenging and expensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
    - rmilejczz 3y ago
      Every software developer should know this story, it is a humbling and important lesson. Yes luckily most of can’t ship code that accidentally kills people but we can absolutely empathize with the conditions which led to it happening. I recommend reading the entire postmortem, http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf yes it is quite long but if you write code in any capacity it’s worth the read
      - jes 3y ago
        Thank you so much for the link to the postmortem. I will be sharing it and discussing it with my colleagues. We are currently working on the embedded software for an AED.
skwirl 3y ago
I’m guessing you aren’t from the US because in the US there is not much prestige in the title of engineer, but it seems to be a title people in Europe get weirdly hung up on. If anything, software engineering positions are more prestigious than most traditional engineering positions here.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  I was a real engineer for a decade before switching to programming. I cannot use the word software engineer, since its nothing like real engineering. Real engineering was def harder, more math intense, and the stakes were sooo much higher. While many software problems can cause you to lose money, engineering problems can cause you to lose time. Yes it sucks your CAD designer had everything on a 0.05 degree angle and it costs 1M to redo the tool, but it also costs 16 weeks to redo the tool. We'd even offer to pay absurd money, prevent future business, etc... to get the tool done in 8 weeks, but its impossible to get it done faster. Now everything in the company is 8 weeks behind schedule. Anyway, real engineering was harder, but programming pays soooo much more money. Its a demand thing, not a difficulty thing.
  - tough 3y ago
    it's just -soft- engineering bro, get over it. It's always been a demand thing, not a difficulty thing.
  - SirMaster 3y ago
    So if you have your PE license and are writing software that controls a commercial airplane system or a spacex rocket, you are not an engineer doing software engineering?
    - hospitalJail 3y ago
      Ahh I forgot to put my usual caveat. Assembly and safety critical C can be considered software engineering. Anything with abstraction, no.
kordlessagain 3y ago
In essence, programming is an ephemeral art. At its core, our work involves utilizing the electromagnetic field to perform tasks akin to 'thinking.' Without continuous computational processes, our products might as well be inert objects like rocks that simply exist unchanged for millennia.

groestl 3y ago

Don't want to argue against you, since the term is definitely misused for signaling a lot of things, but in a stricter sense, software engineering is not about the puzzle, it's about the whole pipeline surrounding it.

xmcqdpt2 3y ago

In my opinion, coding is a craft. As software has only existed for like 70 years, we are more like the guilds building cathedrals in the middle ages than like modern civil engineering. One day I think there will be true software engineering. When that happens you won't be able to start software projects without certifications, and most people (or programs!) who actually do the coding will be following careful plans and instructions from the engineers who designed the project. I for one am very happy software isn't fully professionalized yet!

groestl 3y ago
You will need a software engineer to argue in your favor before the court ;)
tough 3y ago
> One day I think there will be true software engineering. When that happens you won't be able to start software projects without certifications, and most people (or programs!) who actually do the coding will be following careful plans and instructions from the engineers who designed the project. Sounds really bad. Software can't fall on your head and kill you, not all of it at least. Different software should require different professionals building it. And it's usually not about the software but about the management telling the engineers to take shortcuts or whatever (Boeing comes to mind)
- jes 3y ago
  You might enjoy this article on the Therac-25 [1]. It's kind of the standard example of how errors in software can wind up harming people. I have written medical device software for about 30 years. In my experience, delivering high quality software for Class B and Class C devices is both challenging and expensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
  - rmilejczz 3y ago
    Every software developer should know this story, it is a humbling and important lesson. Yes luckily most of can’t ship code that accidentally kills people but we can absolutely empathize with the conditions which led to it happening. I recommend reading the entire postmortem, http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf yes it is quite long but if you write code in any capacity it’s worth the read
    - jes 3y ago
      Thank you so much for the link to the postmortem. I will be sharing it and discussing it with my colleagues. We are currently working on the embedded software for an AED.

skwirl 3y ago

I’m guessing you aren’t from the US because in the US there is not much prestige in the title of engineer, but it seems to be a title people in Europe get weirdly hung up on. If anything, software engineering positions are more prestigious than most traditional engineering positions here.

hospitalJail 3y ago
I was a real engineer for a decade before switching to programming. I cannot use the word software engineer, since its nothing like real engineering. Real engineering was def harder, more math intense, and the stakes were sooo much higher. While many software problems can cause you to lose money, engineering problems can cause you to lose time. Yes it sucks your CAD designer had everything on a 0.05 degree angle and it costs 1M to redo the tool, but it also costs 16 weeks to redo the tool. We'd even offer to pay absurd money, prevent future business, etc... to get the tool done in 8 weeks, but its impossible to get it done faster. Now everything in the company is 8 weeks behind schedule. Anyway, real engineering was harder, but programming pays soooo much more money. Its a demand thing, not a difficulty thing.
- tough 3y ago
  it's just -soft- engineering bro, get over it. It's always been a demand thing, not a difficulty thing.
- SirMaster 3y ago
  So if you have your PE license and are writing software that controls a commercial airplane system or a spacex rocket, you are not an engineer doing software engineering?
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    Ahh I forgot to put my usual caveat. Assembly and safety critical C can be considered software engineering. Anything with abstraction, no.

kordlessagain 3y ago

In essence, programming is an ephemeral art. At its core, our work involves utilizing the electromagnetic field to perform tasks akin to 'thinking.' Without continuous computational processes, our products might as well be inert objects like rocks that simply exist unchanged for millennia.