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If you want to call yourself "engineer" then at a minimum all those standards and minimum requirements should apply, no questions asked. I've heard stories of

by beAbU 3y ago

If you want to call yourself "engineer" then at a minimum all those standards and minimum requirements should apply, no questions asked. I've heard stories of hauling civil engineers out of retirement and in front of a tribunal after some structure that collapsed before it's time, or it was found that the original design was flawed in some way. An engineer "signing off" on something actually means something, with actual stakes. Of course the "developers" will revolt against this, because they are not engineers. A developer does not get to sign off on anything, and everything they do must be scrutinised by the engineer in charge before it can be deployed. Doing this for your common run-of-the-mill CRUD app or HTML website is obviously overkill. Just like you don't need an engineer to replace a broken window or hang a new door. But when it comes to things that actually matter, like data safety and privacy, you must ensure you bring in the right culture (let alone job title).

avgcorrection 3y ago
> If you want to call yourself "engineer" then at a minimum all those standards and minimum requirements should apply, no questions asked. I don’t call myself that so I’m all good. My general vocation is just “technologist”. Plus: not a protected title in my jurisdiction.
renewiltord 3y ago
All those engineers need to be hauled up because they’re killing people. Software engineers by contrast are high performance: barely any fatalities and so much value created. It’s why it’s not construction firms that are the most valuable companies but software companies. You can count on software engineers to build things that won’t kill, for the most part. Other kinds of engineers, on the other hand, are constantly killing people. We need higher standards for engineers. They could learn from software folks. If you can’t do it safely don’t do it.
- josephg 3y ago
  I have a friend who works in a hospital. Apparently the hospital software they use constantly freezes for like, 30+ seconds while they're trying to get work done. Meanwhile my friend has had her passport, entire medical history and all sorts of personal information leaked by Medibank then Optus, within a few months of each other. Neither company as far as I can tell has been held in any way to account for the blunder. Meanwhile the Post Office Scandal is rocking the UK - where a software mistake landed a bunch of completely innocent people in jail and led to multiple suicides. And don't even get me started on the impact of social media. We might not kill as many people as engineers. Maybe. But we certainly cause more than our share of harm to society.
- beAbU 3y ago
  How many lives have been destroyed by leaked personal or payment data?
- Libcat99 3y ago
  Software engineers destroy plenty through data breaches, lost time due to (often deliberately) terrible design, etc. If organizations and software engineers were held to account for data breaches, we'd have a whole new landscape. Lives are lost to software failures as well.
foofie 3y ago
> An engineer "signing off" on something actually means something, with actual stakes. It's all about the social impact of a mistake. The reason "engineers" sign off stuff is not because they are engineers. It's because society frowns upon people dying due to a faulty building, wants to see those responsible for the disaster punished and not be behind another project again. Society's response to ensuring incompetent professionals can't sign off on stuff is to manage an Allowlist of individuals who can sign off, and have mechanisms in place to remove from the Allowlist those who screwed up badly. These Allowlist are things like professional engineering institutions, and someone who is registered in the Allowlist is called engineer. Now, does the software engineering world have anything of the sort in terms of importance in a society? No. A service crashing or a bug being sneaked into a codebase does not motivate a strong response from society demanding some people do not ever get behind a keyboard again.
- beAbU 3y ago
  > ... does not motivate a strong response from society ... Is it not time things change? How many lives have been destroyed by shoddy software? UK post office scandal? Therac-25? Leaked personal, intimate or payment data?
  - foofie 3y ago
    > Is it not time things change? No. There is absolutely no use case for misuse of any mundane service or desktop app that comes even close to match the impact on society of an apartment building collapsing and killing occupants. > How many lives have been destroyed by shoddy software? In relative terms, if you compare any grievance you might have with the sheer volume of services and applications running 24/7 all over the world... Zero dot zero percent. You can't even make a case against using free software developed by amateur volunteers in production environments.
    - josephg 3y ago
      Social media would like a word. The suicide rates of teen girls have tripled since the introduction of social media. To say nothing of the corrosive force on democracy and our ability to make sense of the world as a society. A building collapsing might kill 10 people. A rare tragedy. Social media impacts billions. Even if you want to downplay the negative impact on each person, the total impact across the globe is massive. Software has eaten the world, for good and ill. I think it’s high time we treated it seriously and took some responsibility for how our work impacts society.

by beAbU 3y ago

avgcorrection 3y ago

> If you want to call yourself "engineer" then at a minimum all those standards and minimum requirements should apply, no questions asked. I don’t call myself that so I’m all good. My general vocation is just “technologist”. Plus: not a protected title in my jurisdiction.

renewiltord 3y ago

All those engineers need to be hauled up because they’re killing people. Software engineers by contrast are high performance: barely any fatalities and so much value created. It’s why it’s not construction firms that are the most valuable companies but software companies. You can count on software engineers to build things that won’t kill, for the most part. Other kinds of engineers, on the other hand, are constantly killing people. We need higher standards for engineers. They could learn from software folks. If you can’t do it safely don’t do it.

josephg 3y ago
I have a friend who works in a hospital. Apparently the hospital software they use constantly freezes for like, 30+ seconds while they're trying to get work done. Meanwhile my friend has had her passport, entire medical history and all sorts of personal information leaked by Medibank then Optus, within a few months of each other. Neither company as far as I can tell has been held in any way to account for the blunder. Meanwhile the Post Office Scandal is rocking the UK - where a software mistake landed a bunch of completely innocent people in jail and led to multiple suicides. And don't even get me started on the impact of social media. We might not kill as many people as engineers. Maybe. But we certainly cause more than our share of harm to society.
beAbU 3y ago
How many lives have been destroyed by leaked personal or payment data?
Libcat99 3y ago
Software engineers destroy plenty through data breaches, lost time due to (often deliberately) terrible design, etc. If organizations and software engineers were held to account for data breaches, we'd have a whole new landscape. Lives are lost to software failures as well.

foofie 3y ago

> An engineer "signing off" on something actually means something, with actual stakes. It's all about the social impact of a mistake. The reason "engineers" sign off stuff is not because they are engineers. It's because society frowns upon people dying due to a faulty building, wants to see those responsible for the disaster punished and not be behind another project again. Society's response to ensuring incompetent professionals can't sign off on stuff is to manage an Allowlist of individuals who can sign off, and have mechanisms in place to remove from the Allowlist those who screwed up badly. These Allowlist are things like professional engineering institutions, and someone who is registered in the Allowlist is called engineer. Now, does the software engineering world have anything of the sort in terms of importance in a society? No. A service crashing or a bug being sneaked into a codebase does not motivate a strong response from society demanding some people do not ever get behind a keyboard again.

beAbU 3y ago
> ... does not motivate a strong response from society ... Is it not time things change? How many lives have been destroyed by shoddy software? UK post office scandal? Therac-25? Leaked personal, intimate or payment data?
- foofie 3y ago
  > Is it not time things change? No. There is absolutely no use case for misuse of any mundane service or desktop app that comes even close to match the impact on society of an apartment building collapsing and killing occupants. > How many lives have been destroyed by shoddy software? In relative terms, if you compare any grievance you might have with the sheer volume of services and applications running 24/7 all over the world... Zero dot zero percent. You can't even make a case against using free software developed by amateur volunteers in production environments.
  - josephg 3y ago
    Social media would like a word. The suicide rates of teen girls have tripled since the introduction of social media. To say nothing of the corrosive force on democracy and our ability to make sense of the world as a society. A building collapsing might kill 10 people. A rare tragedy. Social media impacts billions. Even if you want to downplay the negative impact on each person, the total impact across the globe is massive. Software has eaten the world, for good and ill. I think it’s high time we treated it seriously and took some responsibility for how our work impacts society.