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The point still stands. Just because you studied it at university does not make you an engineer in the field or necessarily any good at it. We don't need parrot

by kamjam 13y ago

The point still stands. Just because you studied it at university does not make you an engineer in the field or necessarily any good at it. We don't need parrots, we need thinkers and sometimes that means drawing on experience from different fields. I know plenty of software engineers that never went to university, and one of the best dev's a know studied Russian. Undoubtedly mathematics is the underpinning for programming, if someone held that degree would they be any less of an engineer, esp given a lot of work relies heavily on algorithms?

kabouseng 13y ago
No, but being registered with a certification body does for example the IEEE (http://www.ieee.org/ http://www.ieee.org/). Just for interest sake, would you apply your same logic to surgeons and pilots etc?
- kamjam 13y ago
  Surgeons, sure you need relevant education. But pilots, do you require them to have a degree in flying, or aeronautics? Sure they have to be licensed, but that's different from having a degree in the subject - which is what the original question was. As for being a member of a relevant organisation, I think that comes down to what you are working on. If I had a mission critical* piece of software (used in military, medical, lift mechanism etc) then I would specify that all employees need to have certain minimal credentials. Am I going to be better at my job coding up some websites which just provide some info, probably not. Anyway, IMO titles are meaningless in this industry, the ability to do the job is far more important. *subjective, I know.
  - kabouseng 13y ago
    But that brings us back to the original question, would it be appropriate for a web developer to call himself an engineer. What engineering effort is there in web development? But I agree with you, talk is cheap, and certifications are meaningless if the person cannot do the job.

by kamjam 13y ago

kabouseng 13y ago

No, but being registered with a certification body does for example the IEEE (http://www.ieee.org/ http://www.ieee.org/). Just for interest sake, would you apply your same logic to surgeons and pilots etc?

kamjam 13y ago
Surgeons, sure you need relevant education. But pilots, do you require them to have a degree in flying, or aeronautics? Sure they have to be licensed, but that's different from having a degree in the subject - which is what the original question was. As for being a member of a relevant organisation, I think that comes down to what you are working on. If I had a mission critical* piece of software (used in military, medical, lift mechanism etc) then I would specify that all employees need to have certain minimal credentials. Am I going to be better at my job coding up some websites which just provide some info, probably not. Anyway, IMO titles are meaningless in this industry, the ability to do the job is far more important. *subjective, I know.
- kabouseng 13y ago
  But that brings us back to the original question, would it be appropriate for a web developer to call himself an engineer. What engineering effort is there in web development? But I agree with you, talk is cheap, and certifications are meaningless if the person cannot do the job.