The Atlantic wasn't that kind of leftie rag when I read it.
Leftie rags don't go further than accepting that government intervention ca n can sometimes be a good thing - an anathema to James Arthur, who does Joh n Larkin's political thinking for him. If a government intervention could s top crap programmers from writing crap code, and at least enforce the simpl e rules - no function longer than one page, and every function walked throu gh with another programmer before it gets integrated into the code base - t hat intervention could be useful, though it won't prevent every problem.
In many countries you might be described as a "Civil Engineer", requiring years of education/trainng. I think a similar term in USA would be "Professional Engineer"
I don't think that you could monopolize the term "Engineer". Originally this was a military grade for those building bridges etc on the battlefield. Then there are Locomotive Engineers and Flight Engineers (in older aeroplains) etc. So why not Software Engineer ?
Some insurance requires that designs be signed off by an accredited - in the UK Chartered Engineer in the US Professional Engineer.
Sadly I have to agree. It is also the case that some people with full engineering qualifications are not good engineers either.
And rightly so. Though we haven't had any fall down for quite a while. In the US is seems that bridges collapsing due to inadequate maintenance and dodgy "in good order" inspection reports is common.
*Chartered* Engineer does exactly that.
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In the UK I think only the British Computer Society and IEE can grant qualifying software engineering qualifications (including industry experience) leading to that status.
I should declare an interest here I am MBCS CEng (computing) though it dates from an era when I was involved in software quality improvement and I believed then that at some future point it would be necessary to be CEng to sign off on new designs for software. I could not have been more wrong - these days software is still hacked out of the solid :(
Safety critical stuff is much better managed with formal design methods but the run of the mill shrink wrap stuff is a hotch potch.
Such formal definitions do exist and have existed almost since the dawn of computing. The problem is that industry doesn't care about them and the qualifications are in practice no guarantee of ability either.
The membership of the BCS tends to be more academic than practitioner based - unlike say the Royal Society for Chemistry which is more balanced and well capable of representing its membership forcefully.
The big problem in the UK is actually the devaluation of the term engineer in all its contexts. "Engineer" in the UK is taken by the public to mean some dirty grease monkey with a spanner under their car. It is also the view taken by politicians :(
The Engineering council has been singularly inept at raising the status of engineers in the UK compared to Germany and Japan where engineering qualifications CEng (or Eur Ing) carry real weight and respect.
To sum up comparatively few programmers are engineers but some are. Unfortunately the piece of paper with CEng on is largely irrelevant.
Before I retired I had the title of Senior Engineer at the company I worked for. NASA was paying my company based on the fact that I was an engineer. I was not a Professional Engineer. I was a system engineer. Nobody complained that I was improperly using the title. An engineer is somebody who designs complex systems.
ap >code, and at least enforce the simple rules - no function longer than o ne page, >and every function walked through with another programmer before it gets >integrated into the code base - that intervention could be useful, though it >won't prevent every problem.
This stuff is handled with design control. I worked in medical and you don' t just design circuits and code for medical stuff anyway you want. There ar e all kinds of standards IEC61010, IEC60601,FDA, ISO, etc. Design control w hich requires all engineers to follow certain standards regardless of their background is a better to handle product safety and quality than certifyin g some engineers as 'authorities' who are assumed to know what they are doi ng. Certification is something to put on your resume like a college degree and I think they could be used as an alternative to overpriced degrees.
Sorry I was taking the piss. I picked the term Esquire because I understand Esq denotes a person who is a Lawyer in the US. But nobody picked up on that. It is my understanding that use of the term Esquire may be illegal in some states because "use by an unlicensed person may be evidence of the unauthorized practice of law." *
I think you and I are on the same page. Since my experience is in the IT field, I am frustrated that there is no standardization in the vetting of qualifications or what those qualifications even are. Sadly, it seems that nobody seems to care.
The term 'Engineer' is bandied about, but it seems that even among people who call themselves engineers there is no hard and fast definition of what the title means. Or more to their point, an engineer is anyone who designs and build things.
So perhaps Engineer is the wrong term here.
As a electronics hobbyist since my teens, I have designed and built numerous electronic circuits and do-dads. I guess that makes me an electronics engineer.
My original objection to the term 'software engineer' was derived from my understanding that the title 'engineer' had a specific meaning and that it was a title was granted by a specific governing body.
I still stand by my assertion that the field of IT would benefit from professional licensure; separating the wheat from the chaff.
No. Programmers are not Engineers. Professional Engineers are
Yes, it seems across borders and continents 'engineer' has a variety of meanings. My mistake was thinking it was related to professional licensure. Mea Culpa.
I work in the computer field, so I can speak about this whole computer worker "engineer" deal.
It's just a title change, it means you make more money than a "developer" or whatever. It has nothing to do with designing stuff that won't collapse, and yes software projects can fall over and collapse all the time.
I had "systems engineer" business cards once, not sure who in HR made up that title or why, but somebody decided that's what the job was. It's just like a bank. Everybody that's not a teller is a Vice President, it's just a payscale thing.
Anybody that takes titles in the computing field too seriously is just a clown. There's quite a bit of puffery in this field.
I work in the computer field as well. You are right -- there is a lot of puffery in many fields. I guess I was under the assumption that a title or a designation in other engineering and science disciplines was an arbiter of education, skill, and accomplishment.
Perhaps naively, I thought IT could benefit from this as well. Apparently engineers don't have any consensus as to a standard definition either.
And of course I should realize especially in IT how nebulous standards are -- as the saying goes, "The great thing about standards is that there are so many on them."
Perhaps I am taking titles too seriously. If you can honestly say that being called "that computer guy" is a worthwhile summary of your skills and accomplishments, well my hat is off to you sir.
I still think that as a field IT could benefit from having a way to identify who has made their bones and who hasn't. A "developer", "coder" or "software engineer" -- whatever you want to designate as the title should reflect their ability to pass a competency. Like sorting linked lists or using pointers or whatever Google might use for interview questions as an example.
I believe only Texas is anal about the title "engineer". Other states will get tight-jawed if you have "engineering" in the name of your company, since it implies that you're offering "engineering services". Even in Texas, there is a corporate exemption for engineers.
Everyone ultimately may be judged by their accomplishments, but if they were done in the past, one needs to "refresh" their credentials by intelligent participation in forums and newsgroups such as this. I was designing electronic gizmos before I entered into formal EE studies at JHU, and while there I discovered that I had perhaps more talent with computers and programming than the more traditional studies that required higher levels of calculus. I was also much better at hands-on lab work than theory.
I consider myself to be an electronics design engineer, specializing in both analog and digital circuitry as applied to electrical test equipment, which involved rather high currents and voltages. As technology advanced, it became obvious that computers, microprocessors, and software on many levels, needed to be incorporated in designs. I would not consider myself a "software engineer", although I have "worn that hat" from time to time.
I enjoy learning new things, and more recently I have been enjoying mechanical design such as model engines and EV retrofits. There is a certain attraction to the sight, sound, touch, and smell of machine tools such as lathes and milling machines as they form metal into various mechanical components that fit together and work (or not) in a very distinctive way.
A programmer certainly can be considered an engineer if he or she recognizes or accepts a concept or need, and makes vital decisions about how to craft the framework, interfaces, and details that accomplish the purpose, hopefully in the most practical and elegant manner possible. At some point, a design may pass from mere utility to a work of art.
This may have been the case is the past, relying on the competence of a single person.
These days there are paper producing systems like ISO 9000 that rely on the assumption that more eyes will detect more errors and that the competence of a single person doesn't matter.
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