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Programmers are like plumbers and mechanics (and should be proud of it)

• Dewie 12y ago
  > When the engineering is good enough and the plan is fully thought through, the actual execution of components is mechanical. Yes. In the world of software that "plan" is called a "program", and the "execution", if taken to mean the implementation, is called a "compiler". The act of making that program is called programming. Hence, engineering is programming, and programming is plumbing. By transitivity, engineering is plumbing. Is it still a useful distinction? > If the software engineers, the mechanical service engineers, whatever, do a good enough job planning and designing and diagramming the program conditions, the coders, plumbers, and mechanics can execute on the plan with their tools of expertise. So there is a distinction between software engineers and programmers? The author describes himself as a software engineer, for that matter. I guess he doesn't want to concern himself to be one of those "proud programmers".