Are Programmers Engineers? 1002
The Llama King writes "The Houston Chronicle has an interesting story about a debate in the Texas Legislature over whether programmers are really engineers. A quote: " 'It's one of the silliest issues we're having to deal with this session, but it's also one of the most important,' said Steven Kester, legislative director of the American Electronics Association, an organization of computer companies." Are you really an engineer? Or just a code-monkey?"
Dubya (Score:5, Funny)
They said the same thing when our governer ran for President, but that turned out all right.
Well... sort of...
Re:Dubya (Score:3, Funny)
Joe Carlson
MCSE
CNE
http://www.darthvader.tv/modules.php?name=Han_S
Re:Dubya (Score:3, Interesting)
The real point of all of this was to limit the number of engineers in the market, so as to keep the salaries up. Same thing goes for architects and lawyers.
Protectionism may be ugly, but it is one of America's most cherished traditions.
Re:Dubya (Score:5, Insightful)
Would any MCSEs be willing to be liable for problems in their code? Open to lawsuits for failures, regardless of any EULAs?
There's a reason for laws like this, and that's because of the legal responsibility and liability that comes with being an practicing engineer.
PE certification? Don't make me laugh (Score:3, Informative)
I can say with good experience that the PE ceritificate doesn't prove much. I've seen very smart people with the PE and I've also met an equal number of idiots with the PE. If the PE is a filter, then it needs a great deal of improvement.
I took the EIT class. It was almost all theory. I had thought the EIT and PE were supposed
Re:As a Civil Eng. graduate.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The design of the mirror was perfect, it was the manufacture and testing that were flawed. To add insult to injury Kodak made a perfect mirror that was used in the vehicle testing... It is still sitting at Nasa...
I am a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Britich Computer Society, most programmers in the UK are not. Only a percentage would qualify. Who do you call a programmer? Some HTML and perl monkey who does nothing but setup simple websites with frontpage? Someone w
I'm"I'm not an engineer but I play one at work" (Score:4, Insightful)
year and I only have a masters degree in fine art. (Performance art and Photography
and a few things in between) On the other hand when I was getting that MFA
I built a camera from billitt aluminim and a electric guitar from wood scraps.
I always thought that programming was as much an art dicipline or perhaps
an exercise in linguistics or theater ( see Brenda [google.com]
Laurel )
Re:You can call programmers engineers... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dubya (Score:5, Insightful)
"a person appointed to his job
by a court of people appointed to their
jobs"
Um... which court was that? The US Supreme Court, as always, chose between "you go fix it" and "not our problem" (which is what they've always done since 1789 or so). The people they told to "fix it" were the democratically elected members of the Florida Supreme Court, interpreting Florida laws written and ratified by democratically elected state legislators and signed into law by a democratically elected governor. The issue in question were the election results that a democratically elected secretary of state signed off on.
And even then there was very little the US Supreme Court could have done. All they could do is say whether or not what the State of Florida was doing violated parts of the Fourteenth Amendment or not. Otherwise, the US Constitution clearly spells out that the Florida Legislature can pick its memebers of the Electoral College however it damned well pleases.
And don't forget that appointments to all federal courts have to be cleared by a democratically elected Congress, which also has the power to remove them from their bench.
Re:it's a strange version of democracy (Score:5, Informative)
Katherine Harris was both George W's presidentail campaign co-chair and Florida secretary of state in charge of elections ie who was allowed to be on the roll and vote counting. No conflict of interest here?
Every single decision she made followed the law and held up under international scrutiny.
Katherine had anyone "suspected" of commiting a felon removed from the rolls
I assume you got this from the BBC's Greg Palast since he is really the only person that thinks this is a story. A quick look at his webpage [gregpalast.com] will show you how partial he is (he seems to have staked his entire career on undermining the Bush presidency).
Now for the real facts:
In 1998, Florida Division of Elections Director Ethel Baxter, a democrat, hired the firm Database Technologies to compile this list. The list had around 100,000 names on it.
One of these "supposed felons" was Linda Howell, elections supervisor of Madison County, Florida. The only way to get back on the roll was to agree to fingerprinting. Ie guilty until "proven" innocent.
Once again, nobody was required to use the list (several counties including Madison County didn't use it at all), but if they did use the list, they were required to independently verify the names before any action was taken. The fingerprinting was only required to dispute the removal if the person actually was "verified" by the county supervisor and removed from the voter registration- otherwise they probably never knew they were on the list. With all of his complaining, Mr Palast has only found about a half a dozen people that were incorrectly removed from voter registrations and forced to dispute the removal.
So it boils down to this:
There is only anecdotal evidence that any legitimate voter was actually prevented from voting because of this list. Rep Corrine Brown, a democrat, claimed that she saw "2 or 3" black people get incorrectly turned away, but when the media pressed her, she was unable to give any details.
So were minority voters specifically targeted? The NAACP, who came in to represent these minorities, stated VERY plainly in this settlement [naacp.org] that
Definitely (Score:2)
Re:Definitely (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a code-monkey and not an engineer in the sense that I don't think I'd be willing to be held liable for my bugs
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Definitely (Score:3, Interesting)
In an interview I recently had, a group manager for lockheed martin told me that he prefered to hire people that were educated as electrical engineers to do the programming for his group. He said their method
Re:Definitely (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Definitely (Score:3, Interesting)
To some extent, I would fall into the latter category. My degree has "computer science" printed on it, but I've done custom hardware to solve some problems. When we got some security cameras in that didn't provide for computer control, I reverse-engineered the bundled remote control (just a bunch of switches and resistors, really) and built a replacement control that handles up to 8 cameras and plugs in
Re:Definitely (Score:3, Interesting)
I prefer the term (Score:2)
How To Start A Heated Debate (Score:5, Funny)
1: Ask the question, "Are Programmers Engineers?" on a tech-oriented website.
2: Well... pretty much any other question, but No. 1 is the humdinger granddaddy of all waltzing in a minefield questions.
And just to get things started, "Yes."
CODE MONKEY!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be major news that Joe Somebody's computer crashed today, an event greeted with grim commentary and TV specials.
Re:CODE MONKEY!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be major news that Joe Somebody's computer crashed today, an event greeted with grim commentary and TV specials.
I think its hilarious to hear this from a hardware engineer. Do you know how many bugs hardware has? Do you think that the Pentium bug was some kind of rare event?
Re:CODE MONKEY!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Homeland secretary has raised the terror alert to code orange in response to overheating toaster coils...
The Bush administration points to a recent survey that nine out of ten americans thing their pests are psychic as proof of the resolve of the public on the Middle East invasion (oops) Iraq War....
Re:How To Start A Heated Debate (Score:4, Funny)
vi.
:)
Programmers are not engineers, let me explain (Score:5, Insightful)
Now scientists and mathemeticians work with very complex systems all the time. However, most if not all of it is theoretical.
Engineers take that theory and his own experience to build a useful system. This system has to withstand the rigors of the real world. It also has to be done on time, on budget, and actually do its job without killing someone.
A lot of "scientific" achievments in the past century are actually engineering achievments.
Now the point I am trying to make is that programmers are always defining new things. Engineers can't responsibly design systems around parts with unknown properties.
Engineering and most programming endeavors are mutually exclusive. A good engineer can't afford to have an unknown in the process.
Look at the space shuttle. That was real software engineering. They designed the whole system, to do a specific task, within a specific set of parameters. Yes there was programming involved, but in this case the software was only a highly flexible control system in an aerodynamics problem.
Could some 14 year old given enough time and caffiene do the same thing? Probably. Would I trust that software with my life and a 4 billion dollar spacecraft? No. Odds are the kid would not have a grasp of the differential equations, Laplace transforms... ah... engineering school equations leave me now...
Re:Programmers are not engineers, let me explain (Score:3, Interesting)
Bzzzt.
What keeps the dictators of the world from officially having nukes is
Re:Programmers are not engineers, let me explain (Score:3, Informative)
The raw materials are hard to get because the "weapons grade" uranium is a very small percentage of
Re:How To Start A Heated Debate (Score:4, Insightful)
The purpose of school is two fold:
1. to teach
2. to evaluate
I think the biggest failing in education as it is currently practiced is that these two things are tied too closely together. There are many highly capable people who are actively prevented from contributing to society because of this, resulting in an enormous waste of human potential. Different people learn in different ways, and even for those who do learn best in a formal way, some subjects don't lend themselves well to that.
I'd really like to see the existence and accreditation of an institution that does not teach, but only evaluates. This way, it matters not whether you studied in a classroom, or hired private tutoring, or took self-moderated self-study courses, or just read a lot out of personal curiosity, or just got your hands on and figured it out for yourself.
And I'm talking about more than just simple testing, though there would likely be some of that. For such a thing to be credible, it would have to be very rigorous and closely monitored. Personally, I think it should be so rigorous as to be of greater credibility than that of traditional degrees.
In the interest of full disclosure, I too am a high school drop out with a fairly high-tech career.
Neither ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Neither ... (Score:4, Funny)
Journeying from city to city looking for a job doesn't count.
(Okay, sorry, couldn't resist. I recognize the word, too, and I agree that this is a Good Thing To Be.)
Does it matter? (Score:4, Funny)
The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:4, Interesting)
How many 'software' engineers in Texas are willing to put their reputations on the line (and stand up to civil lawsuits) if they have made a coding mistake??
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:5, Informative)
It all boils down to liability. If I certify a water treatment process safe and its not. Than I am in DEEP trouble. No more lisence, fines and basically the carrear is down the tube. In Canada and I think most of the commonwealth this is true.
Now I know a bunch of computer engineers, most of those guys are hardware, not software, but these guys wouldn't want to be engineers under Canadian law if they were doing programming. The computer software industry is still too immature to fall under these types of guidelines. Too many programs are not stable yet are shipped out because marketing wants them to.
I think I all boils down to currently the public is willing to let flawed software exist. And until someone dies nothing will change.
Like water in Ontario. People have to die before there is a backlash and things are fixed.
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:5, Insightful)
This would certainly mean the end of crappy software. In fact, it would mean the end of ALL software. We can't get our employers to pay us to do it properly now -- you think that's gonna change just because your career is on the line?
Software doesn't suck because software engineers are bad. Well, okay, it does, but that's not the only reason. The primary reason that software sucks is that nobody is willing to pay us for the amount of time it actually takes to do something. When you take an 18 month schedule and compress it down to 6, remove all QA, and THEN add all sorts of additional requirements at the last minute what do you expect? I doubt if "real" engineers work that way, why should we?
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:4, Interesting)
> in the state of Texas, you can be held liable
> for any damages on a project.
You are liable for your negligence whether you are licensed or not.
> How many 'software' engineers in Texas are
> willing to put their reputations on the line
> (and stand up to civil lawsuits) if they have
> made a coding mistake?
How many software engineers are willing to work as "associates" for low wages for years while the senior partners take all the credit and all the money in hopes of eventually being granted the recommendation they must have in order to get a license?
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll take a moment to rant here, actually, because it's something I see alot with all kinds of accreditation. People have an assumption that the diploma or the logo or whatever means that they're innately more skilled than people without it - it doesn't. It means that you're accredited to have met a minimum amount of skill, not that you're privy to knowledge that others don't have.
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:5, Insightful)
1) People would quit screwing with programmers, telling us we need to evolve into "software engineers." All that that ever does is add paperwork and make my job harder. A bunch of people come in, who don't know how to do our jobs, and tell us to do it differently, because it will make us engineers.
2) It would raise the level of quality within the field. If everyone was held to the same standards when they came into the field, there would be some minimum level of knowledge required to start out. Good. Now I won't have some putz without a clue telling me my code isn't up to snuff.
Why is this not going to happen any time soon:
1) Do you test their coding ability? In what language?
2) Do you test their knowledge of algorithms, or are you, in doing so stepping into the scientific discipline and away from the engineering discipline?
3) Do you test their knowledge of data structures?
4) Do you test their knowledge of UML? Most universities gloss over this, as in academia, this seems to hold little repute, yet many companies stake their claims as engineers on knowledge of UML.
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me that the question in Texas just boils down to whether the programmers have passed the test, done the paperwork and paid the fees.
So, what's the Software Engineering Exam in Texas like? Hard? Do they test in C or pseudocode or what?
(In other words, you license particular professions that have a potential impact on public or customer safety, not the word "Engineer". If they feel that there's some danger that people will trust me to design their buildings because I'm a software engineer, then they have to restrict the word "Engineer" to a particular profession. Just like I can't call myself a MD or police officer.)
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:3, Insightful)
People always bring this up, and it always make me think the same thing: you couldn't sue a medieval "barber" if he made you sicker rather than better with his regimen of "bleeding" and leeches. But you can sue a doctor for malpractice if he accidentally leaves a sponge in you. Is software "engineering" at an analogous level of maturity?
Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas (Score:3, Funny)
Everyone just sat there, looking around to see who would be the first to raise their hand. Finally a man near the back raised his hand. The speaker asked him "You feel that confident about your software, do you?"
He replies, "No. I just know that if my company was writing
Re:The meaning of Professional Engineer in Texas (Score:3, Insightful)
I would imagine programmers would be more likely to accept personal liability if management and marketing didn't force projects to go out before they were ready.
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
I can just see it now (Score:4, Funny)
Exactly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, I am going piss off a lot of people but consider a large software project... say developing the software to run a complete Air Traffic Control System (ATC). This task would likely require hundreds of programmers and many managers and systems engineers. The managers and systems engineers who develop the SPECIFICATIONS, PROTOCO
Re:Because for us it would be a derogatory label (Score:4, Insightful)
My former roommate and good friend is an engineering student, and their program is way harder than anything I have to do. I'm not sure if you knew this or not, but in order for a University to teach (accredited) engineering, they have to have a certain (read: tough) curriculum, which is not true for CS at all.
While I'm watching TV he's up to his eyeballs in homework. Engineering not only teaches you the science of things, it teaches you to have an awesome work ethic. I would never call myself an engineer, simply because an engineer goes through a heck of a lot more than me. I have tremendous respect for people who make it through that program.
+5 insightful. For shame, moderators, for shame. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have entertained the thought that you are a troll, and that responding to you would serve no purpose. That +5 moderation, however, shows a giant gaping void of ignorance in at least a subset of Slashdot moderators, and that, at least, should be addressed.
Now, I grew up in a household of "big engineering" so I'm a bit biased, but you are so wrong it isn't even funny.
points:
1. No mathematics in engineering? I'm speechless. Flabbergasted... Stunned. What do you think engineers use, iambic pentameter?
2. Science. Right, no science in engineering, and a whole lot of science in programming. Why, engineers never use physics, say, or chemistry. Alot less than that guy over there working on opitimizing that printer driver.
3. Art. The Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate bride, the Hoover dam.
or
Windows ME.
Many engineers I have known have decades of programming experience, on bare metal, Fortran, and C++. Who do you think developed the field in the first place? That programming sprang fully formed from the forehead of Zues, like Athena?
Re:+5 insightful. For shame, moderators, for shame (Score:3, Insightful)
"Many engineers I have known have decades of programming experience, on bare metal, Fortran, and C++."
Then they are not engineers, they have distinguished themselves as being much more than that, even in your mind. They are programmers, obviously a cut above their engineer peers, which include you, since you did not say "I am an engineer but I also program C, Fortran, etc.".
The reality is, John Carmack, one the finest programmers alive, has gotten further as an aerospace engineer in two years than some e
Re:Because for us it would be a derogatory label (Score:3, Insightful)
I honestly hope the above is just ignorance, and not thick headed stupidity.
Engineering has far more to do with science, art and mathematics than computer programming does.
Science
The theory and science behind thermodynamics, as well as material mechanics was almost entirely deveop
Depends on a number of things... (Score:4, Interesting)
- size of project
- mindset
Level of involvement:
Are you a system architect? Do you write php or perl on the weekend? I think the answer to those should be obvious. The higher ups who do design the system, and work with what parts fit where, etc, I concider engineers. They need to know the rules, have good practices, and so on.
Size of project:
Writing a web-based app is usually not engineer-level work. I'm not putting this on what language you use, but in general anything written in perl/php/other-scripting-language is not engineer-level (a project we just finished at work was written entirely in perl/ksh, so this is not 100% true.)
Most of all....
Mindset:
If you think like an engineer, you are an engineer. If you plan carefuly, and think everything through and treat your product as a full system, you are likely an engineer.
If you sit down and start typing code, you are likely a code monkey.
Re:Depends on a number of things... (Score:5, Insightful)
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a programmer, but I am a sysadmin who dabbles in C, Perl or Python sometimes, and the occasional shell hack. It's proven a useful skill many times, and I'd like to think that I am somewhat competent at it. Oh, and I acquired these skills autodidactically (sp?).
Seriously, i don't code much, but when I do, it's either to work around some bug or patch around some unwanted behaviour, to glue a front-end to some back end thing, or I cobble something together to automate some stuff. Sure, there's not a lot of design going on, but I usually produce readable code, and somewhat decently commented (that's so I'll understand what's going on when I look at it 6 months later when it breaks), but no, I wouldn't call myself a programmer, but yes, I do program. I rather wouldn't, but hey, shit happens.
So are code mumbling sysadmins like me really programmers? I'm certainly not a code monkey, although I use _no_ form of design methodology. Hack first, ask questions later.
It's a toughy, I grant you that...
Re:Depends on a number of things... (Score:3, Interesting)
I work with 2 electronics technicians. One carefully thinks things through, architects his designs first, and in general makes as good or better a solution than what I brought to him. He has a technical electronics degree - kinda like a TV repair man.
The second has a master's in engineering, but is so incompetent I usually choose to do the work myself - it will get done faster, and better. Mostly, it won't need to be re-done is 2 weeks.
So which is the en
Re:Depends on a number of things... (Score:3, Informative)
Personally, writing an "application" isn't engineering, and it really doesn't even require a computer scientist to do. I'm talking about bare-bones pithy little applications that don't have to take anything into account except one or maybe two different systems; like your database structure and your application layer. You can tier them up individually, but in the end somebody writ
It all depends ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I EARNED the right to be a Software Engineer.
Re:It all depends ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It all depends ... (Score:5, Insightful)
For what it's worth, I have a high level of academic and industry experience. I design and write code for a living, which makes me a professional programmer. I EARNED the right to put "BA" after my name[1], and I EARNED some cash. I did not EARN the right to call myself a Software Engineer, any more than I EARNED the right to call myself an MD, a PhD or any other title that may give the perception of competence.
[1] My university awards BAs for all non-Masters degree courses, even science ones
Re:It all depends ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Texas, unlike the rest of the US, says that the title Engineer is
Re:It all depends ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It all depends ... (Score:4, Insightful)
There can't be an Engineer in software. As Alan Cox has written on several occasions, software engineering is roughly in the alchemay stages in relation to state of the art chemical engineering.
In a real engineering, process there are things to check, verification, and known facts which can be double checked against the standing design. The design checked against the implementation.
Building a bridge is a much easier process then say writting a secure OS UNIX clone. It's easier in the sense, that it's been done so many repeatable times since the Romans. The understanding of the underlying structures of a bridge are well know. All intereactions between the people on the bridge, and the bridge are known (hard to calculate them all, but reasonable well known). Recently (in the last 50 years), we learned a new trick about bridges. That the cross sectional area, and wind can interact with forces that will tear down a bridge. Okay, that as far as I know was the last major mistake that was a complete unknown in bridge building. I believe it happened sometime in the 50s. You know right after the first couple of computers we're built. We don't know anything writting software in comparison to bridge building.
Building a Secure UNIX or UNIX clone has yet to be done once. The understanding of all the various layers of software spans when writting an GUI application all the way down to the quantum effects that happen in silicon, I believe they claim 12-15 orders of magnitude of understanding. That's a lot, possibly more then any other intellectual endeavor ever undertaken.
About the only places that can stand up and say, they follow an Engineering process are places that are SEI certified Level 5. They have a repeatable, measurable process by which they do things. That starts to sound like Engineering. Real Engineering is very hard, very tedious, and very boring. Most code jockeys I know, couldn't do it. It'd drive them nuts. You've got absolutely no right to be called an Engineer on an off the shelf software application. If you write software for a company that foists on you a horrible, gut renching process, of checks, double checks, that involves throwing away everything that doesn't meet their excating standards, now you talking about it. Where every single index is documented to not be possible to overflow the array, that's Engineering. I've never seen anybody ever do it, but if it we're Engineering, it would have to be done. Even after all that, you still have to be working in an area where what your doing is extremely well understood, and has been done lots of times before. Where all interactions between every module is well researched, and well understood. Where all the compenents have well defined qualities, that react in a statistically predictable manner in all situations.
Have you considered what solar flares would do to your software? Do you have a fault tolerant memory storage scheme to account for the bit flips that will occur because of it? Do you use an operating system, and do you understand all of interactions between the various parts? Have you documented why everything works the way it does? Do you document every single change with a full risk analysis of why it's being done, and how it only improves the reliability of the system. People in Engineering do that. People who worry about stuff like that, are Engineers. It's not that Engineer's do
A prelude to licensing (controlling) programmers (Score:2)
I'm just surprised it took this long.
So call them artists (Score:2)
However, anyone can be an artist, so let's call them Software Artists. Sounds so much better than code monkey...
Re:So call them artists (Score:2)
Depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Code-Monkeys: these guys do exactly what they are thought to do: Grind out code. Usually not innovative, usually no technical achievement. Nevertheless, they'll get the job done especially if its something that they can base off other things.
Computer Scientists: These guys use code to test new ideas and methods. This is the research side, but its not always practical research. An analogy I can make is you can't a bridge without math but advanced number theory really doesnt make better bridges.
Computer Engineers: These are the practical counterparts to somputer scientists. Usually innovative but in a sense that they comstruct useful things. What an engineer makes a code-monkey will be able to replicate soon. Just like it takes an engineer to design an engine, but Joe-mechanic can rebuild one or even "modify" it to get some use out of it.
I dont want to put a negative spin on any of these as they all serve their purpose in my mind. Perhaps you will dis/agree.
cheers
-bort
Re:Depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately the upper management is full of people who don't understand that. They think we're still code monkeys and think I'm being sarcastic when I give them an estimate of 6-8 weeks for a bug fix.
Re:Depends (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. Most engineers of any specialty rely upon existing well understood designs which they might modify to fit a particular situation, but rarely ever venture very far from what they have been shown to work before. So it would seem that there is no differenc
Right (Score:4, Informative)
Don't Water Down "Engineer" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't Water Down "Engineer" (Score:4, Insightful)
I applaud Florida who makes it illegal to expand the term "MCSE" on a resume or in a business letter unless you are an actual engineer.
Whether or not these people are using the term engineer correctly or not, it is abhorrent for the government to use its energy to try and prevent the evolution of terms. Nobody would ever be endangered if an MSCE expanded his job title. He is a Microsoft Certified Engineer, not a Chemical Engineer or a Civil Engineer. Nobody would hire a Chemical Engineer to build a bridge and nobody would hire an MSCE to do it either. So the harm is just to your sense of propriety. Flame them if you like but leave the cops and courts out of it.
Re:Don't Water Down "Engineer" (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution of terms? OK well, unlike the rest of the general population you and I may be able to appreciate the subject of linguistics and the gradual "evolution of terms" in language. The fact of the matter is that people are dumb. People are so dumb that if you tell them you're an engineer, they'll trust you. Have you ever seen a perso
Re:Don't Water Down "Engineer" (Score:4, Insightful)
Evolution of terms? OK well, unlike the rest of the general population you and I may be able to appreciate the subject of linguistics and the gradual "evolution of terms" in language. The fact of the matter is that people are dumb. People are so dumb that if you tell them you're an engineer, they'll trust you.
What does it matter? Do people at cocktail parties hire engineers? Look, if a guy with an MCSE goes to a job interview and presents himself as a civil engineer, he'll probably go to jail. But the same goes if a Chemical Engineer presents himself as a Civil Engineer or a Doctor of History presents himself as a medical doctor. The fact that the guy who isn't what the public calls an engineer or a doctor happens to use that term does not hurt anyone. The people who hire need to know the difference or we are in deep shit regardless of what the law says.
If the public at large gets to define what "engineer" means then it means "guy who runs the train."
It is 100% the government's responsibility to intervene and as a soon-to-be ACREDITED software engineer in the province of Ontario, I'm glad they are doing it! I'm sick of these 2 years in IT college also-rans calling themselves software engineers!
And now we come down to the real issue. It has nothing to do with protecting the public. It's simple elitism. You've worked hard for a particular designation and you're afraid it will come to be seen as less prestigious. Boo hoo. It's too late. To the general public, an engineer is the guy who runs the train.
Re:Don't Water Down "Engineer" (Score:3, Insightful)
Know what most of the public think an Engineer is?
The guy who drives the train.
Re:Don't Water Down "Engineer" (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is that the term "Engineer" should be used properly. MCSE or a Netware "engineer" qualify as misuse of the term 'engineer'. A "Microsoft Certified Systems 'engineer'" is really a technician, not an en
Re:Don't Water Down "Engineer" (Score:3, Funny)
Scientists are thought.
Every scientist I've ever met had a definite corporeal aspect as well. A lot of young scientists wish they could be pure, disembodied thought, but they grow out of it.
Choo chooooo! (Score:2)
Define it. (Score:2)
Generic geeks. Look at Dilbert for example.
The difference (Score:5, Informative)
Engineers engineer. They understand the problem better than the customer, and are consequently relied on to help form the basic goals of the project itself. Engineers, working at a strategic level, could also excel in business or government if technology didn't have the best toys.
I don't think most of you are engineers (Score:5, Insightful)
However in the world of IT and programming, any slackjawed yokel who can hack out 5 lines of perl can say they're a badass programmer. No engineering to that. Thats like a poseur mechanical engineer making a basic drawing and saying he 'engineered it'.
There are real software engineers - they do engineer their products, but the trend towards dilution of the term engineer seems to stem mostly from the IT field where a programmer thinks the term synonymous with engineer.
Re:I don't think most of you are engineers (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, I'd rather NOT be called an Engineer, it's kind of demeaning.
Re:I don't think most of you are engineers (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd much rather be "Software Sultan" or "Kode Kaiser" but...
Re:I don't think most of you are engineers (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously what it all really boils down to is the following: As more and more people become programmers without a formal education (which is a wonderful thing) do we need to distinguish between a nautrally capable (and self-taught
ACM needs to step up (Score:2)
Oh, come on... (Score:2)
Kester said the electronics industry has made changing the state law a top priority because it is making it difficult to recruit employees from other states and around the world. "We run the risk of not having them move here," Kester said. "That puts us at a significant disadvantage."
Yeah, right. Like the weather, fallout from the various crooked company implosions, bankrupt state government and general shitty quality of life have nothing to do with it.
Let's ask Webster (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's ask Webster (Score:3, Insightful)
First definition of "doctor" from dictionary.com: "5. A practitioner of folk medicine or folk magic."
Just because a word has a common usage doesn't mean that it is a precisely correct definition of the word. I think that most people will agree that practitioners of folk yadda yadda shouldn't hand out business cards that proclaim them doctors. Programmers can call the
Re:Let's ask Webster (Score:3, Interesting)
Fair enough. Then when a particular piece of software crashes, the software engineer can be held liable for damages caused by the crash (lost time, income, etc.) When you write code, do you stand behind it? If it doesn't work or crashes, will you accept responsibility and liability? If the answer to these questions is "yes," then I applaud your willingness to stand behind you
In Alberta ... (Score:2, Informative)
However, the University of Calgary, and possibly the University of Alberta, now has a Software Engineering degree program, as sort of a subset of Electrical Engineering. This program gives you a BSc in Software Engineering, bu
By their meaning... (Score:5, Interesting)
7/8 of the people working as "coders", that read "Java for waiters" clearly are not engineers either. Also clear cut.
4 year degree with something on the EE//CS line (I'm right in the middle) and a dozen years in the real world... if you have the degree, and you have the insurance covering your work by yourself or by proxy - which i'm gonna call "licensed" then yea, you're clearly an engineer by THEIR meaning.
But nothing is more insulting then being considered in the same job category and resume pile as waiter-turned-coder-last-weekend.
I'd love to see Texas lay the law down on the clueless, and license those of us that really do this for a living. Then all those waiters and such can go back to doing things they can do well.
Well... (Score:2, Informative)
I'd like to point out the job title "software engineer". They don't just hand that to anybody.
Secondly, the dictionary definition of engineer ( Dictionary.com [reference.com]) states the following:
One who is trained or professionally engaged in a branch of engineering.
One who operates an engine.
One who skillfully or shrewdly manages an enterprise.
These definitions aren't the best, so let's go
Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)
Engineering is a PROFESSION. A profession is an industry that is licensed and regulated. A secretary can't call himself a Professional because you don't need to be licensed and regulated to
Engineering is about ethics, and responsibility (Score:2)
A good example of this is the fact that all engineers here wear a symbolic iron ring on their right pinky, supposedly made from the iron of a failed bridge that collapsed due to poor engineering, IIRC. This ring is a constant reminder of the responsibility that engineers have to society, as we all put our lives
An engineer... (Score:5, Funny)
Optimist: "The glass is half-full."
Engineer: "The glass is twice as big as it needs to be."
Programmer: "Who cares? Just drink the free beer!"
Requirements are obscene (Score:5, Informative)
- An engineering degree that meets some basic requirements
- 4-8 years of experience, depending on your degree
- Detailed log of what you've done for these last 4-8 years
- Experience under another licensed engineer
- Five references, three of which must be other licensed engineers
- Two exams
There is a serious problem here, notably that there are few licensed electrical engineers and no licensed software engineers. Since you need a licensed engineer to create a licensed engineer, few if any qualified people will ever be able to license themselves.There are exceptions for people who have been in the field for something like 12 years, but you are still required to have a detailed log of everything you've ever done. Simply put, most people never get this far.
Personally, I would love to have my license to go along with my EE degree, but it's just not realistic to waste my time. I don't even know any licensed EEs, much less have a company willing to hire me and place me under another licensed EE to gain the required experience.
My suggestion for the state is this. The word "engineer" has become watered down in the past several years. As it stands today, licensed engineers are allowed to place "PE" after their name, as well as calling themselves "engineers." Thus, the state should probably allow "engineer" to be used in whatever context people want and only let licensed engineers use the "PE" designation.
Licensing is important and has its place in quite a few fields, so I also recommend that the state evaluate ways to open the door for more people to be licensed in the high-tech fields. Perhaps the restrictions should temporarily be made more lenient to "seed" the field with licensed engineers, thus allowing for easier licensing of new engineers in the future. Finally, I recommend that the legislature let the engineers figure this out, rather than figuring it out for them.
We need strong Computer Science governance (Score:3, Interesting)
Currently, the software engineering we see growing out of the traditional engineering culture is not sufficient or inclusive. Engineers do not make good computer scientists.
My take (Score:4, Insightful)
So I believe if you have your degree in CS/EE/CE or even Mathematics, and you are a developer, then you have earned the right to be called an engineer. The 16 yr old has a long ass way to go.
Perspective of a student Engineer (Score:3, Insightful)
As I am getting towards the end of my degree and I'm getting ready to head out into the big world and work, we've started to be taught several ethics courses. Additionally, I have recently received my iron ring [ironring.ca] - a symbolic (and secret!) ceremony that affirms my commitment to public safety. Through this, I have been picking up the subtleties of a professional designation.
A Professional Engineer, like a Professional Doctor, Nurse, Lawyer, etc., has a deal of responsibility to the public at large. The privilege of being able to build large buildings, for example, comes at the cost of being responsible that the building doesn't fall. Accordingly, Professionals have professional bodies that they are accountable to above and beyond their responsibilities as a normal citizen. The laws are also much harsher on a professional when they don't act in a professional manner.
My main issue with software developers using the title "Engineer" is that the software development industry at large doesn't seem to adhere to the professional conduct demanded of a professional. Just take a look at the standard EULA as an example - imagine if the designers of bridges did a similar thing? While I have no qualms about the software developer "engineering" in the sense of creating, I wouldn't call a first aider a "doctor", despite the fact they do the same thing.
From my perspective, the ideal solution would be to integrate the software developing business into the Engineering profession. In addition to having a professional title, this would be a healthy step towards maturity of an industry that is plagued by antitrust, among other things. This could help bring respect and dignity to the software developer - in addition to more money - which I believe is what people really want.
Anyways, until such time as this happens, I'm not comfortable with the use of "Engineer" by software developers. In Canada, the term "Engineer" is actually copyrighted to the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers [www.ccpe.ca] - a few years ago, there was actually a conflict with a University [www.mun.ca] that provided an unaccredited course called "Software Engineering", claiming academic freedom. It resulted in a mess, including the temporary withdrawal of accreditation to the engineering programs at the university.
Which was a bit counter-productive.
-legolas
Engineering Defined: (Score:5, Insightful)
By that definition, a software developer is quite frequently an "engineer".
The real debate I'm reading here is whether you need an accredited certificate to be titled an "engineer".
I feel no compunction about calling myself a "network software engineer". I perform acts of engineering daily - co-ordinating thousands of bits of data on multiple clusters of computers in a scale and scope comprising thousands or (potentially) hundreds of thousands of people.
Yet, I do not have any official-looking pieces of paper saying "engineer". So, I am not an accredited engineer, but that doesn't stop me from engineering!
Engineer vs. Code Monkey (Score:5, Informative)
I end up working in both capacities..
If a customer wants a new network put up, and says "give me 30 web servers", I'm going to enginner the network that can do that, from the uplink connection to the server itself. As the engineer, I'll make decisions on what softwares he's going to run, install, and configure them.
Likewise, if the customer says "give me a system that does xxxx", that'll be engineered. The people who wrote and operate Google or Yahoo must look at themselves as engineers, not just some code monkey that wrote some programs.
If the same customer says "Make me a page that says hello world, and put it on my 30 servers", that's code monkey work.
Here's the important bits from dictionary.com [reference.com]. I feel that these say we're engineers..
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engineer
engineer Pronunciation Key (nj-nîr)
n.
1. One who is trained or professionally engaged in a branch of engineering.
3. One who skillfully or shrewdly manages an enterprise.
tr.v. engineered, engineering, engineers
1. To plan, construct, or manage as an engineer.
3. To plan, manage, and put through by skillful acts or contrivance; maneuver.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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engineer
\En`gi*neer"\, n. [OE. enginer: cf. OF. engignier, F. ing['e]nieur. See Engine, n.]
1. A person skilled in the principles and practice of any branch of engineering. See under Engineering, n.
3. One who carries through an enterprise by skillful or artful contrivance; an efficient manager. [Colloq.]
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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engineer
\En`gi*neer"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Engineered; p. pr. & vb. n. Engineering.]
1. To lay out or construct, as an engineer; to perform the work of an engineer on; as, to engineer a road. --J. Hamilton.
2. To use contrivance and effort for; to guide the course of; to manage; as, to engineer a bill through Congress. [Colloq.]
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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engineer
n 1: a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems [syn: applied scientist, technologist]
v 1: design as an engineer; "He engineered the water supply project"
2: plan and direct (a complex undertaking); "he masterminded the robber" [syn: mastermind, direct, organize, orchestrate]
Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
Software Too Soft? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm concerned that that Software Engineering as a Professional Engineering discpline is not really going to get very far very quickly. The public and our potential clients need too much education to see value in the profession. I believe the Professional Engineering associations have a huge challenge ahead.
The Professional Engineering associations do what they can under the legislation to support Professional Engineering. The ultimate premise behind the legislation and existence of these associations is that Professional Engineering is needed. Of course in traditional engineering fields, including the oft-exampled bridge building, a degree of competence is required and demanded by the client. Where public safety is at issue, the professional associations stand behind the "seal of approval" needed by the client, government, and the general public. Of course no one wants unqualified people responsible for works that pose an obvious potential danger.
However, the public trust is very difficult to causally connect to the practice of professional Software Engineering. I submit the following reasons:
While there might be enough evidence, both academic and anecdotal, to counter all of these points, it requires extraordinary public education. I have heard comments from my local association members wishing for more proactive public education in traditional Professional Engineering disciplines. While the association has had some lukewarm results in raising the Engineering profile, I find the challenge of doing so for CSED to be orders of magnitude more difficult.
P.S. I currently work primarily in Software Development, but hold my P.Eng as an EE.
An Expert Opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Their divisions each had a substantial investment in software engineers, one more so than the other. And they had slightly different opinions.
They both felt that it should be a licensed profession based on the quality of the people they hired. One hated the CS people they hired, because they were too eager to do thing. He'd rather train an EE to program, because within 2 years they'd be far more productive and introduce fewer problems. The EEs he felt had a respect for failure that the CS students lacked. He especially cited the degradation of most CS programs during the 90s due to the perception of incoming students that they should all turn into Windows coders. Perhaps things will perk up now that the market has tanked. The other didn't have a strong opinion about where they came from, but he noted they tended to hire more out of engineering than CS programs.
One felt that Software Engineering wasn't mature enough yet because it lacked a set of rigorous standards. Civil Engineers know how much you can safely load a beam, EEs know failure points on components, but Software Engineers don't have these - or don't have them laid out as standards. What is the standard for preventing buffer overflow? etc. Until there are well regarded standards for Software Engineering practice, there's probably not much value in licensure. Of course, licensure isn't important to them, so they might not have been so hot on it.
I've also spent time with some Biomedical execs that deal with software in their industry and they expressed more urgent need for it. For one, they're accustomed to accountability through the FDA and physician liability. One pointed out that medical device companies tend to be pretty small - not unlike civil engineering firms, and simply don't have the resources to cover their own liability. They need licensure. They worry less about the hardware development because they can hire licensed EEs or MEs.
Read the EULA. (Score:2)