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> I'm not even sure building software is an engineering discipline at this point. Maybe it never was. It isn't. Show me the licensing requirements to be a "sof

> I'm not even sure building software is an engineering discipline at this point. Maybe it never was. It isn't. Show me the licensing requirements to be a "software engineer." There are none. A 12 year old can call himself a software engineer and there are probably some who have managed to get remote work on major projects.

anthk 8mo ago
In Europe they are. Call yourself an Engineer without a degree and your company and you will be sued with a big fine, because here you must be legally accountable on disasters and ofc there are hard constraints .
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  > In Europe they are Where specifically? I've been working as a "Software engineer" for multiple decades, across three countries in Europe, and 2-3 countries outside of Europe, never been sued or received a "big fine" for this, even have had presentations for government teams and similar, not a single person have reacted to me (or others) calling ourselves "software engineers" this whole time.
  - dranudin 8mo ago
    In Germany. I have a degree in mechanical engineering and am thus allowed to call myself an engineer, even though I write software professionally. Colleagues who have studied computer science cannot, as it is not considered an engineering, but a science degree. This is why most people talk about "software developers" and not about "software engineers" (in German) to avoid this problem. That being said, most people would not actually care.
    - anthk 8mo ago
      Where it should be the reverse. Science demands reproducibily where engineering just tight thresholds to function upon defined conditions, but not 100% exact. And except for SEL4 and some small microcontrollers with Eforth, C and tons of languages have undefined behaviours.
- organsnyder 8mo ago
  Canada also (at least some provinces). I have quite a few Canadian software engineer colleagues with their iron rings to prove it.
  - nizsle 8mo ago
    An iron ring does not technically make you an engineer in Canada. It just says you graduated from an engineering program. A P.Eng, which is a professional engineer's license is something you acquire after multiple years of experience and testing.
- petr25102018 8mo ago
  No, that's plain wrong (I am from Czech Republic). You can even get an "engineering degree" (Ing.) by studying economics.
  - anthk 8mo ago
    Not in Spain, Germany, France...
JoshTriplett 8mo ago
> It isn't. Show me the licensing requirements That's assuming the axiom that "engineer" must require licensing requirements. That may be true in some jurisdictions, but it's not axiomatically or definitionally true. Some kinds of building software may be "engineering", some kinds may not be, but anyone seeking to argue that "licensing requirements" should come into play will have to actually argue that rather than treat it as an unstated axiom.
- AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
  Depends on the country. In some countries, it is a legal axiom (or at least identity). For the other countries, though, arguing "some countries do it that way" is as persuasive as "some countries drive on the other side of the road." It's true, but so what? Why should we change to do it their way?
  - JoshTriplett 8mo ago
    > Depends on the country. In some countries, it is a legal axiom (or at least identity). As I said, "That may be true in some jurisdictions, but it's not axiomatically or definitionally true.". The law is emphatically not an axiom, nor is it definitionally right or wrong, or correct or incorrect; it only defines what's legal or illegal. When the article raised the question of whether "building software is an engineering discipline", it was very obviously not asking a question about whether the term 'engineering' is legally restricted in any particular jurisdiction.
    - SoftTalker 8mo ago
      To my mind, the term "engineering discipline" implies something roughly analogous to Electrical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering. There is no such rigorous definition for "software engineer" which normally is just a self-granted title meaning "I write code."
- lmm 8mo ago
  > it's not axiomatically or definitionally true. Depends which definition you're going by. Some people do define "engineer" that way.

anthk 8mo ago

In Europe they are. Call yourself an Engineer without a degree and your company and you will be sued with a big fine, because here you must be legally accountable on disasters and ofc there are hard constraints .

embedding-shape 8mo ago
> In Europe they are Where specifically? I've been working as a "Software engineer" for multiple decades, across three countries in Europe, and 2-3 countries outside of Europe, never been sued or received a "big fine" for this, even have had presentations for government teams and similar, not a single person have reacted to me (or others) calling ourselves "software engineers" this whole time.
- dranudin 8mo ago
  In Germany. I have a degree in mechanical engineering and am thus allowed to call myself an engineer, even though I write software professionally. Colleagues who have studied computer science cannot, as it is not considered an engineering, but a science degree. This is why most people talk about "software developers" and not about "software engineers" (in German) to avoid this problem. That being said, most people would not actually care.
  - anthk 8mo ago
    Where it should be the reverse. Science demands reproducibily where engineering just tight thresholds to function upon defined conditions, but not 100% exact. And except for SEL4 and some small microcontrollers with Eforth, C and tons of languages have undefined behaviours.
organsnyder 8mo ago
Canada also (at least some provinces). I have quite a few Canadian software engineer colleagues with their iron rings to prove it.
- nizsle 8mo ago
  An iron ring does not technically make you an engineer in Canada. It just says you graduated from an engineering program. A P.Eng, which is a professional engineer's license is something you acquire after multiple years of experience and testing.
petr25102018 8mo ago
No, that's plain wrong (I am from Czech Republic). You can even get an "engineering degree" (Ing.) by studying economics.
- anthk 8mo ago
  Not in Spain, Germany, France...

JoshTriplett 8mo ago

> It isn't. Show me the licensing requirements That's assuming the axiom that "engineer" must require licensing requirements. That may be true in some jurisdictions, but it's not axiomatically or definitionally true. Some kinds of building software may be "engineering", some kinds may not be, but anyone seeking to argue that "licensing requirements" should come into play will have to actually argue that rather than treat it as an unstated axiom.

AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
Depends on the country. In some countries, it is a legal axiom (or at least identity). For the other countries, though, arguing "some countries do it that way" is as persuasive as "some countries drive on the other side of the road." It's true, but so what? Why should we change to do it their way?
- JoshTriplett 8mo ago
  > Depends on the country. In some countries, it is a legal axiom (or at least identity). As I said, "That may be true in some jurisdictions, but it's not axiomatically or definitionally true.". The law is emphatically not an axiom, nor is it definitionally right or wrong, or correct or incorrect; it only defines what's legal or illegal. When the article raised the question of whether "building software is an engineering discipline", it was very obviously not asking a question about whether the term 'engineering' is legally restricted in any particular jurisdiction.
  - SoftTalker 8mo ago
    To my mind, the term "engineering discipline" implies something roughly analogous to Electrical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering. There is no such rigorous definition for "software engineer" which normally is just a self-granted title meaning "I write code."
lmm 8mo ago
> it's not axiomatically or definitionally true. Depends which definition you're going by. Some people do define "engineer" that way.