The fact that software engineering applies to so many fields is exactly the reason why I often find it problematic when it's treated as 'one thing' in a discuss

The fact that software engineering applies to so many fields is exactly the reason why I often find it problematic when it's treated as 'one thing' in a discussion. While the process of writing software looks deceptively uniform (files with code), the purpose of said software can be anything in reality (and it can even be used to create an entire virtual representation of (a) reality). Perhaps 'software' is too broad a concept to discuss without qualifiers? It's a bit like lumping together essayists, lawyers, analysts, journalists, poets, novelists, philosophers, etc. under the label 'writers', and then try to have a meaningful discussion about hiring practices, writing standards and writing tools. This doesn't really make, as the requirements of a junior reporter are quite different from those of a junior lawyer. The fact that they both write words on paper doesn't change that. I suppose they could discuss the quality of different pens. Our equivalent to that might be code editors...