Are Programmers Engineers?

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?"

Comments

Dubya

[0x7F]

"Texas is becoming a laughingstock of the global high-technology community," said Steve Taylor, director of corporate affairs for Applied Materials.

They said the same thing when our governer ran for President, but that turned out all right.

Well... sort of...

Re:Dubya

[Anonymous Coward]

I Must be an engineer because Microsoft and Novell both say so! Take that Texas.

Joe Carlson
MCSE
CNE

http://www.darthvader.tv/modules.php?name=Han_So lo _Webcam

Re:Dubya

[Guppy06]

Troll.

"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:Dubya

[Dark Nexus]

It's a simple matter that in most areas, engineers are liable (criminally liable in cases) for a failure of anything they've signed off on.

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.

How To Start A Heated Debate

[ackthpt]

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."

Re:How To Start A Heated Debate

[Jester99]

So you wanna start a heated debate? Your way takes too much effort. I'll start one that'll get even hotter, with far less effort:

vi.

:)

Re:How To Start A Heated Debate

[wkitchen]

I don't think I'd trust a high school drop out to build me a bridge.

I would, IF there were another way to validate his/her credentials.

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 ...

[DogIsMyCoprocessor]

an engineer or a code monkey. I'm a journeyman ... in the best sense of the word.

Re:Neither ...

[devphil]

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.)

Re:Definitely

[Anonymous Coward]

In this particular case, it also pobably has to do with the safety standards issue. For example, a civil engineer has to certify that the bridge that he designs meets certain minimum safety standards, and will be held professionally liable for it if it doesn't.

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 :)

The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas

[Amigan]

If you are a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in the state of Texas, you can be held liable for any damages on a project. That was the reference to the 1937 project.

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

[Omega Leader-(P12)]

There was a similar problem here in Ontario (Canada) to use the term "Engineer" you have to be lisenced. It is illegal to try and pass your self off as one if you are not lisenced. M$ had to drop the term engineer from their certification process. Check out Professional Engineers Ontario under Software Engineer for more details.

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

[krugg234]

On the other hand, licensed Professional Engineers undergo rigorous training in order to obtain that status. I'm not sure exactly how it works in Texas, but in North Carolina (where I'm in school), becoming a professional engineer takes 3 steps. 1) You have to pass an extremely long and difficult test in various areas of engineering such as thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and solid-state physics. 2) You have to work a set number of hours under an already licensed PE who signs off on your work. 3) After completing those required hours, you have to pass yet another exam that tests your engineering know-how. I'm sure if anyone ever tried to implement such a system for liability for software engineers, it would require having those coders undergo similar training. I'm not saying that this would make the software engineers any less likely to make mistakes, but it does mean that: (a) those who are professionally certified know the risks and have been trained in avoiding mistakes and (b) only those who are willing to be held liable would become PE's. You are allowed to do less critical engineering work without obtaining your PE license. I'm sure the same would true for software developers.

Re:The meaning of Profeesional Engineer in Texas

[John Hasler]

> If you are a licensed Professional Engineer (PE)
> 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

[NitsujTPU]

I wish that they would make a qualifying exam for software engineers, so that one could get a PE in software engineering. Not so much because I care about the title but because of a few other reasons:

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

[ryanr]

That kind of licensing just means that they have to carry a bond, which is a cheap form of insurance. Most licensed professions (eg locksmith) require a bond. (FYI, you can get a $30,000 locksmith bond for $15/year & a magazine subscription.)

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

[arkanes]

It was a failure of design. It's being maintained by constantly shoring it up. Call it the real world equivilent of solving memory leaks by getting more memory. It's an instance of a major project that ran into huge trouble because an engineer fucked up and therefore a counterargument to the idea that having the little symbol on your buisness cards somehow makes you more capable than someone without it.

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

[a42]

but it does mean that: (a) those who are professionally certified know the risks and have been trained in avoiding mistakes and (b) only those who are willing to be held liable would become PE's. You are allowed to do less critical engineering work without obtaining your PE license. I'm sure the same would true for software developers.

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?

Well...

[Sayten241]

If garabage collecters can be "sanitation engineers" and housewives can be "domestic engineers" then why the hell not programmers. =P

Depends on a number of things...

[zapp]

- level of involvement
- 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...

[CoolVibe]

If you sit down and start typing code, you are likely a code monkey.

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...

It all depends ...

[Tensor]

On what you studied, here i took a 5 college year course including physics 1 & 2, thermodynamics, calculs, adv calculus and all the regular programming/db/hw subjects finishing with a work-experience paper presented 6 months after finishing classes to graduate.

I EARNED the right to be a Software Engineer.

Re:It all depends ...

[Skyfire]

yeah, but you do the same stuff as the code-monkey in the cubicle next to you that took courses for 6 months to a year at the local commmunity course

Re:It all depends ...

[Fluffy the Cat]

In various parts of the world, an engineer has a level of professional liability and expected ethics that the software industry refuses to accept. When that's no longer the case, I'll have a good deal more sympathy.

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 ...

[ComputerSlicer23]

Not really. I've double majored in Mathematics and Computer Science, and have 15 hours of upper level physics, and I'm a code monkey, I've got over 95 hours in Math, Physics, Engineering, and Computer Science related courses. I didn't pass the state certification process to be given the title of Engineer in the state I work in (Nebraska in this case). If I'd done that, I would have earned the right to be called an Engineer. Oh, and my business cards refer to me an Engineer, technically that is my title at work, but I've got right to the title. The guy in charge made it up, and I can't refuse it.

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

Depends

[menasius]

I think there are three types of people who program.

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

[Arandir]

I'm definitely a Software Engineer. Not only does my job title say so, I do the work of one. I am NOT a code monkey. 90% of my time is spent on requirements, specifications, design,validation, verification, and reviews. Excepting the calculus and state licensing, I do the same things an engineer in any other field does.

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.

Don't Water Down "Engineer"

[jeramybsmith]

The term "engineer" has already been besmirched by Novell and Microsoft. Lets not water it down futher. The answer is simple. Someone with a computer engineering degree from a 4 year university is an accredited engineer. Someone with an IS, IT, MIS, ITM degree is _not_ an engineer. Sorry but if you wanted to be an engineer, you should have studied engineering. Someone who drops out of college and learns VB or perl or something is not an engineer. The term engineer implies some form of accreditation. 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.

Re:Don't Water Down "Engineer"

[smallpaul]

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"

[smallpaul]

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.

The difference

[j]

Programmers work at a tactical level. They are supplied specifications and produce a product to meet them. They are skilled labor, akin to tailors and masons.

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

[brarrr]

I am an engineer in the traditional sense of the word. I find it abhorant that a tech support person puts the word in their title or that there are actual cases of 'sanitation engineers'. To be a legal engineer, you must have the degree, and pass the exams proving that you are capable in your field. Furthermore, you cannot claim to be capable in a related but different engineering field unless you truely are. I may be shiznit in the field of transportation engineering, a subset of civil, but can and would never put my name on anything to do with structures, because I might not have the expertise.

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

[zangdesign]

Actually, I'd rather be called a Software Developer, since it's more of an evolutionary process, not a fixed science. There are fewer physical principles that drive software development than something like Mechanical or Chemical engineering. There are also way more philosophical ramifications to our job, since software driven computing equipment is so pervasive in our society.

In fact, I'd rather NOT be called an Engineer, it's kind of demeaning.

Let's ask Webster

[Xformer]

Second definition of "engineering":

a) the application of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to people b) the design and manufacture of complex products <software engineering>

According to that, programmers are engineers. That's especially true for those programmers that do design as well (like myself).

Re:Let's ask Webster

[Ruds]

Second definition of "hacker" from dictionary.com: "2. One who uses programming skills to gain illegal access to a computer network or file."

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 themselves engineers amongst themselves, but shouldn't advertise themselves as engineers without more justification than the fact they can program.

Software engineers do exist. There should be an accrediting board that identifies those people. Someone in another thread mentioned the ACM; that seems like a good candidate, and perhaps others could be put forward.

Matt

By their meaning...

[Duncan3]

By their meaning, clearly most poeple are not engineers. That's a clear cut one.

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.

I can just see it now

[LPetrazickis]

Programmers are now "Simian Engineers".:)

CODE MONKEY!!!

[cybermace5]

You're all code monkeys until your job really CAN'T be done by a smart high-school kid, and you have polished the art to the point that all the OTHER engineers accept and respect you as engineers!

It should be major news that Joe Somebody's computer crashed today, an event greeted with grim commentary and TV specials.

Re:CODE MONKEY!!!

[smallpaul]

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:Definitely

[Dolphinzilla]

are you an engineer that writes software or a computer science major who does electrical engineering - I have met computer science majors who by all rights I would call Systems Engineers - they had a complete understanding of the hardware at a very low level and how the software makes up these systems of systems - on the other hand I have met computer science majors who were just code monkey's or sys admins who thought what they did was engineering when they plugged a PCI card into a motherboard. The very best software programmers that I have personally met were all Electrical Engineers (and one PhD in Physics who wrote radar signal processing code). I think the trend in Universities offering "software and computer engineering" degrees is telling in this respect - its a grey area.

An engineer...

[megazoid81]

Pessimist: "The glass is half-empty."

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!"

Right

[emmons]

I think he confused computer engineer with software engineer. Computer Engineers are pretty much just EE's with an emphasis on VLSI design and system level software.

Requirements are obscene

[fremen]

The requirements for being a licensed engineer in the state of Texas are pretty crazy. A guide can be found here. To summarize:

• 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.

Re:Definitely

[bjcubsfan]

As an Electrical Engineer, I would like to say that being an EE is in now way the least. It is definately one of the more difficult engineering fields. As far as programmers being engineers, I would say that they can be, but it the main difference is the methodology behind how they write their code.

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 methodology made their code better. By the way, he is in charge of programming the targeting and tracking for the weapons systems on F-16s.

We need strong Computer Science governance

[mrybczyn]

If organizations such as the ACM, ACL, ALP, CRA, ISOC, and the various national associations were to combine forces and come up with accreditation and standards for "Software Professionals", we might get somewhere. An accredited computer science degree, followed up by specialized examination in a particular field, should yield professional standing just as much as a medical, engineering, or law degree.

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

[brsmith4]

If you went to a university and studied in a computer science or computer engineering curriculum (this means that you have studied at least 3 semesters of calculus, 2 or 3 semesters of physics with lab, taken a semester of algorithms, data structures, linear algebra, and a plethora of other mathematics related courses, not to mention your programming courses) then you are an Engineer. This is because a university graduate with the degree in CS/CE/EE has the background to truly apply math, physics and engineering principles AT an engineering level. Some 16 yr old from the local high school that knows how to do VB or Java doesn't even posses a thimble of the knowledge of a true engineer. That is why you see your 16 yr olds coding perl scipts for a web site form processor and your true engineer getting paid 10 times as much and busting out with apps that the 16 yr old probably couldn't even operate.

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.

Re:Because for us it would be a derogatory label

[LongJohnStewartMill]

No offense, man, but engineers take way more shit than programmers. For the record, I am not an engineer or an engineering student, I am a CS student (aka programmer some of the time).

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.

Perspective of a student Engineer

[legolas]

Context: I'm in my 4th year of Electrical and Computer Engineering at a Canadian university.

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 - 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 - a few years ago, there was actually a conflict with a University 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

Programmers are not engineers, let me explain

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Engineering is all about applying what you know and creating a working system.

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.

• Powered Flight: The mechanics of powered flight were understood for hundreds of years. The stumbling block was a lightwieght power plant and a control system for rolling motion. Enter a pair of bicycle mechanics from Ohio.
• The Apollo mission: no new scientific theories there, but a brilliant application of what theories we did know.
• The Atomic Bomb: the theory can be grasped by a child, what keeps the dictators of the world from having the A-Bomb is the fact that they are devilishly hard to make.
• The Internet: anyone who has read an RFC knows that there is no magic involved. The Internet is built on top of a body of standards, defined protocols, and the good faith of all parties involved.

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...

Engineering Defined:

[mcrbids]

engineering n The application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems.

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!

I'm"I'm not an engineer but I play one at work"

[HughsOnFirst]

Gee, Cisco used to think I was an "Software Engineer" and paid me 135k a
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
Laurel )

+5 insightful. For shame, moderators, for shame.

[NecrosisLabs]

Congratulations, your post has won the highest rating to bullcrap ratio I think I have seen on Slashdot yet. That is quite an achievement...

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?

..must not feed the trolls, must not feed the trolls...

Re:it's a strange version of democracy

[cheezedawg]

Oh great. Here we go again.

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 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, after it was discovered that there was widespread fraud in the Mayoral elections in 1997 (several dead people and convicted felons ended up voting), the Florida Legislature (not Katherine Harris or Jeb Bush) passed a statute designed to prevent that from happening again (that link might not work- looks like the server is down).
• The statute called for a statewide list of potential felons to be compiled. This list was passed to the election supervisors in every county.
• The county elections supervisors were not even required to use the list at all, but if they did decide to use it, they (the county supervisors, not Catherine Harris) were required to verify the names as actual felons before they were removed from the voter registration. Therefore, if somebody was incorrectly removed from the voter registration, it was the county supervisor's fault.
• If somebody was removed from the voter registration based on the list, they were given written notice months before the election with a procedure to dispute the removal

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:

• An unknown number of innocent people were put on the original list of 100,000 names
• Of that unknown number, an unknown number lived in counties that actually used the list
• Of that unknown number, an unknown number were actually removed from the voter registration lists by the county election supervisor
• Of that unknown number, an unknown number failed to dispute the removal
• and of that unknown number, less than 50% turned out to vote anyway (general voter turnout)

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 that

Re:You can call programmers engineers...

[PhipleTroenix]

I had a professor who claimed anytime you had to append "science" to something it meant that it wasn't. Computer Sicence, Political Science, etc.