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In Canada, it's illegal to practice engineering, or call yourself one, without a engineers license. There's nothing worse than retards who get a college degree in programming and start calling themselves "engineers". It's an insult to every actual certified engineer in the world.

Actually, the distinction is not as cut and dry as you would like to think. Most countries, including Canada, have restrictions in regards to who can use the title Professional Engineer. The Professional Engineer designation usually connotes a degree of legal responsibility when they execute their duties.

However the use of the word "Engineer" in a position name or title is not as well defined legally. For instance in the US there is the notion of Industrial exemptions, where certain engineering positions do not require licensure because the product is sold across the country, or existing legal avenues for compensation of a faulty product are considered antiquate. Furthermore, in your country of Canada, the decisions regarding the use of the word Engineer in a title are varied across provincial lines, for instance some cases from Alberta, two of which it was ruled that the persons use of the word engineer was not liable to confuse the public or cause the public harm. Only in Quebec and Ontario is the word "Engineer" regulated, not just "Professional Engineer" via the Engineers act.

Obligatory IANAL,IANYL, IANAE, IANASE, ILB

In Alberta (Canada), under APEGGA, software engineering is an accredited discipline. There are some P.Eng software engineers (although I can't say what the certificate has printed on it). See; http://www.apegga.org/Applicants/pdf/General/GApplication.pdf

Given that the University of Calgary offers degrees in Software Engineering http://www.enel.ucalgary.ca/undergraduate/, and that it is a protected term by APEGGA http://www.apegga.org/members/Publications/peggs/Web02-05/compliance.html/ (Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, & Geophyscists of Alberta), I think the more accurate statement would have been "I don't have the credentials to call myself a Software Engineer, and I'm going to whine about it on the front page of Slashdot".

I'll ignore all the personal remarks, and get to the nitty gritty. Firstly - the rules that apply to me, as a professional:

http://www.apegga.org/pdf/Guidelines/02.pdf

Specifically Rule #1 "1 Professional engineers, geologists and geophysicists shall, in their areas of practice, hold paramount the health, safety and welfare of the public and have regard for the environment."

And the law that governs Engineers etc in this province, the "Alberta Engineering, Geological and Geophysical Professions Act"

http://www.canlii.org/ab/laws/sta/e-11/20041004/wh ole.html

42 In this Part,
(a) "conduct" includes an act or omission;
(b) "investigated person" means a professional member,
licensee, permit holder, certificate holder or
member-in-training with respect to whose conduct an
investigation is held under this Part;
(c) "practice of the profession" means practice of
engineering, practice of geology or practice of geophysics,
as the case may be.
44(1) Any conduct of a professional member, licensee, permit
holder, certificate holder or member-in-training that in the opinion
of the Discipline Committee or the Appeal Board
(a) is detrimental to the best interests of the public,
(b) contravenes a code of ethics of the profession as
established under the regulations,
(c) harms or tends to harm the standing of the profession
generally,
(d) displays a lack of knowledge of or lack of skill or
judgment in the practice of the profession, or
(e) displays a lack of knowledge of or lack of skill or
judgment in the carrying out of any duty or obligation
undertaken in the practice of the profession,
whether or not that conduct is disgraceful or dishonourable,
constitutes either unskilled practice of the profession or
unprofessional conduct, whichever the Discipline Committee or the
Appeal Board finds.

This is studied as a required course in order to become a Professional Engineer. In exquisite detail we use the 'bridge' example. Reporting it to your superiors is not enough, if you know the bridge design is defective and can compromise public safety. It is not good enough to simply tell your bosses. By law in this province, you must go over his head, and their head, until you run out of bosses. If you know there has been a spill of highly radioactive substances - should you not call the EPA if you 'run it up the chain of command' and they do nothing?

Now, go back to my original reply. By act, or omission, this guy (according to the article) did not do everything in his power to make the public safer. He reported it to his superiors (who did nothing) and let it be, as far as I can tell. Silence is the same as representing the public is safe, when indeed it is not.

So, all this over the fact you can read what I write.

Second, your silence can only be applied as misleading if you had the ability to say something and did not.

There was nothing wrong or what would be considered a lie in this guy based on anything he didn't say.

As I originally stated, a lie is an act, or omission. This guy, by all standards of professional conduct I know of - lied.

Now, as for such adjectives as you have used to describe me, like 'ignorant', 'liar', 'half-wit' (I'll correct that one for free); please print this thread out, fold till it's all sharp corners, and shove it up your tight little ass. *kisses!*

Read "The Long and the Short" on the The Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta site http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/W eb05-01/readers_forum.htm

This article at least should spark some debate.

My question is, do we have definitive evidence (independent studies) that man-maid CO2 is profoundly higher in volume than CO2 from natural causes? I would be interested in reading any studies that /.'ers know about on the subject. I think, as a conservative republican myself, that my party is not doing enough to curb industrial pollution in general. I mean, industry pumps some seriously harmful stuff into our environment.

I'm both concerned for the short and the long term effects for my children. Cancer, Asthma and other respiratory problems, and a whole host of other pathologies have been discovered and connected to the presence of toxic substances in our air and ground water. To this, there is no question, and I believe the current old-timer Republican have been catering to big business too long, and allowed them to harm our children for too long. The real Conservative believes in small-government, low-taxes, promotion of the free-economy, and standing on moral convictions.

The current office holding Republican is big-brother big-government (totally forsaking the ideal of small-government under the excuse of national security), at least is still preaching low-taxes, is only promoting the free-economy in multi-billion dollar mega-corporations and huge globalization powers (forsaking the rights of the real free-economy of small and medium sized business), and is only talk on important moral and social issues (Abortion/Genocide/Euthanasia/Poverty/Mega Trusts/Addiction to name a few), and action on unimportant ones (Mexican immigration and Gay marriage.) I understand these mild criticisms don't go far enough for most /. readers. I won't mention my criticisms of the other party, which are much worse.

The environment is a moral issue. If we aren't good stewards of our world, we all suffer.

But when I hear all this railing over CO2 emissions, it seems like nonsense to me. I could be totally off-base here, and I'm not an environmental scientist, but it seems that CO2 emissions are not the problem. We all naturally respire CO2... hell what do you figure the respiratory CO2 emissions of human and livestock alone are for a country like China? I think the real problem is deforestation. We need to be thinking about every space being a green space. We need to bring the forest into every urban and rural area. We need to combat chemicals that kill natural O2 producing algae in our oceans.

We need our international treaties to not be worrying about taxing Australian ranchers for their cow-farts, and rather on reclaiming our forests.

I totally agree with you here.
I'm a third year electrical engineering student at the University of Calgary, and I can say that classes are more about the knowledge base than about whether you can use them in a career. They teach you to learn quickly and efficiently, and that's what employers are looking for. To even become an accredited engineer you need to have 4 years of on-the-job experience, because learning in class is only half of the actual education. There are also programs such as internship that are highly encouraged (we have about 80%-ish of 3rd years apply to internship this year). It's during the experience phase that you learn the meat of what you need to know.

Without the knowledge base you don't have an engineer, you have a technician. The knowledge base is what defines the engineer. Plus, engineering grads get a lot of research done, and you can't do useful research unless you have taken all the basic courses first!

Fix your title. "Engineer" is a legally protected title in Canada. http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/W eb02-05/compliance.html

Well, it's also something that's potentially harmful. There is a reason that universities need to be accredited to offer engineering degrees, and that once you become a professional engineer (PEng) you can lose that license if you don't do your job properly.

A lot of people don't realize that calling yourself an 'engineer' carries the same sort of weight and responsibility as calling yourself a doctor or a lawyer. You have people's lives in your hands (and often on a bigger scale than doctors - when doctors screw up, one patient dies.. when engineers screw up, bridges fall down and many people die). You can have your engineering license revoked for bad pratice. And just like doctors and lawyers, you can get in a lot of trouble for praticing engineering without a license.

I've met a lot of MCSE's that couldn't solve their way out of a cardboard box, and yet, they have the word 'engineer' in their title. And these are the people designing and implementing often mission-critical systems that our society depends on.

The PEO brought Microsoft Canada to court over this issue, and although Microsoft will still use the MSCE title, they (and people holding the title) are only allowed to use the acronym MSCE or full title, and are not allowed to call themselves simply 'engineers'. A lot more information on this can be found at PEO's Software Engineering site.

Basically, Microsoft is not willing to change the title (citing it would cost them too much, and they like the branding it has), and want to continue using the term 'engineer'. The CCPE and the various provincal bodies (PEO, APEGGA, etc) are now talking enforcement, saying anyone that misrepresents themselves is facing $50,000 fines.

I don't think engineering can be lumped in with science and math when it comes to jobs.

Engineering as "applied science" has a lot of direct, commercial use. There are often co-op programs and, around these parts, the two years of EIT (Engineer-in-Training) under a professional engineer before you earn your professional title.

You certainly go through the mill in most educational institutions for engineering degrees. Entire classes with marks around 12% on final exams seems not uncommon. The attrition rate for those unable to give a lot of time (or, in some cases, collude on assignments :) is very high - that cuts down the attendance from most cultures; I imagine Hong Kong may slowly "calm down" in the future, evening out the ratios slightly, but that's a hard culture to shake :)

You don't start at the top, but under the engineering professional societies, you have a semi-"unionized" group that tries to ensure that their members stay up to date, and get fairly compensated.

Many companies can use their services directly, especially here in oil-rich Alberta. By contrast, the number of companies (as opposed to universities) that need the services of scientists and mathematicians is comparatively sparse.

Gandering through a number of the classifieds, in New Scientist, on government job postings, etc., it seems that scientists (haven't encountered mathematician job postings yet) get paid a pittance by comparison - even the senior jobs. Especially badly too, it would seem, in the UK. Academic institutions look positively generous by comparison.

It seems the globe goes through doldrums where the focus is all on the bottom line, on what you can squeeze out in the next two weeks. The situation probably reflects that we're in such 'doldrums'. Not sure what's going to spur on the next set of interest in research (although some branches of biology are still "hot"... or at least "warmer" at the moment) - it might, sadly, end up being something political again (I'm sure the moon landing was just scientifically motivated :)

Well, there's my rant for today :)

I think things are quite different here in Canada than the US. Engineering is a much clearer boundary, it's the law. Here is legislation passed in Alberta that governs the the use of the term engineer. (And geologist and geophysicist) APEGGA recently took Microsoft to court over the MCSE term and won. You aren't allowed to expand it here either.

In Canada, each province has its own "Engineering Act". Alberta's is much the same as Newoundland's; maybe the acts are pretty similar across Canada. Neither the Alberta nor the Newfoundland Act restricts the use of "engineer". It restricts the use of the term "professional engineer" and it restricts who may engage in the "practice of engineering" as defined be the applicable Act.

One may not call oneself a "profession engineer" or use its abbreviation "P. Eng." and one may not falsely misrepresent oneself as "profeesional engineer". In Alberta and Newfoundland, the "practice of engineering" involves "discovery, development, or utilization of matter, materials, or energy. See The Engineering Act of Alberta.

Since the term "Software Engineering" predates Brook's "Mythical Man-month" and is commonly understood within the industry not to be "professional engineering", there isn't enough evidence to support a claim that putting "Software Engineer" on stationary or business cards violates the Engineering Act.

Since software cannot reasonably be believed included in "matter, materials, or energy", the practice of software engineering does not violate the Act either.

Frankly, I don't much care for the term "software engineer", but it is established now, so I live with it.

It's not so much an issue of using the term "engineer" but of misrepresenting yourself as a wearer of the iron ring.

Microsoft Corp. will advise Canadian holders of its MCSE certification not to call themselves engineers or use the full title Microsoft Certified System Engineers, news releases announced earlier this month.