It undermines a long tradition of designing and building infrastructure in the public interest.

Old, but fun read that argues that today’s programmers are not like typical Engineers and shouldn’t really call themselves that as Engineering requires certification, is subject to government regulation, bear a burden to the public, etc.

  • leisesprecher@feddit.orgEnglish
    4810·
    19 hours ago

    All this gate keeping is bullshit, but I do have to agree that we are really bad at actually engineering.

    • enkers@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      38·
      18 hours ago

      I don’t think gate keeping engineering is bullshit, software or otherwise. In fact I think it is one of the few eminently important things to gatekeep.

      If computer systems have peoples lives depending on them, having accredited engineers that may be part of a chain of liability for their mistakes is a potentially life saving measure. It provides increased guarantee that someone will be held responsible, be it the firm, or in the case of bankruptcy, the individual engineer.

      This provides a significant incentive to only sign off on work that meets all relevant safety criteria.

      I’m not sure if that’s how it works in software engineering, but it certainly should.

      • jonathan@lemmy.zipEnglish
        10·
        18 hours ago

        There are separate titles for accredited engineers in the US and UK. If anyone cared enough they’d already be using them. The fact is, vanishingly few software engineers work on high risk (to human life) projects. Versus, for example, structural engineers doing it daily.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          17 hours ago

          We’re kinda close because we make a tool that people in a dangerous line of work use to plan their dangerous work. That said, there are checks at each step (output from our software is checked by other software, which loads it onto hardware with its own checks, and then get double check everything before pushing “go”).

    • drd@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      162·
      19 hours ago

      I mean you can’t go to the store purchase a stethoscope and call yourself a doctor. Similarly, programmers do not require any sort of certifications or are heavily regulated unlike engineers. It’s an interesting argument for sure.

      • Windex007@lemmy.worldEnglish
        15·
        19 hours ago

        It depends on the jurisdiction.

        In Alberta, Canada, for example, employers will hire programmers from two distinct pools of educational streams: Computer Scientists and Software Engineers.

        CS programs are governed by the faculties of science, software engineers by the schools of engineering.

        The software engineers take the same oaths or whatever and belong to the same organization as the other engineers (in Alberta, APEGA) and are subject the same organizational requirements to be able to describe themselves as engineers. They can have the designation revoked the same way a civil engineer could.

        Practically speaking, as someone who works with both, I don’t see a meaningful difference in the actual work produced by grads of either stream. But at least in my jurisdiction the types of arguments being made don’t really hold because it is a regulated professional designation.

      • jonathan@lemmy.zipEnglish
        51·
        18 hours ago

        The protected title for Medical Doctors is Doctor of Medicine. I can get a PHd in Software Engineering and call myself Doctor.

        • enkers@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          12 hours ago

          You can, but if some cries out “Help I need a doctor!”, please don’t volunteer yourself. ;)

          • Womble@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            4 hours ago

            FWIW doctor comes from the latin for “I teach” and has been used by acedemics since the 12th centrury. Its usage meaning physician is a lot more recent.