Slashdot Mirror
The Life of a Software Engineer
Jonathan Wise writes to share with us an interesting bit of prose describing life as a software engineer. "I am, in the States, known as a Software Engineer. In Canada we're not allowed to call ourselves engineers, although the discipline is no less rigorous than any other kind of engineering. But perhaps its for the best, because 'engineering' describes only a part of what I do. A software developer must be part writer and poet, part salesperson and public speaker, part artist and designer, and always equal parts logic and empathy."
Sure, make light of the industry. I've been writing safety critical software for the last 7 years. You can thank the software engineers that wrote the fuel injector firmware for the turboprop on your plane for properly engineering it to always work. And while you're at it the software engineers who wrote the code running the life support systems in the ICU also deserve some props.
Not all of us work in a fault tolerant environment. Because we do our jobs well, you don't hear about the latest scandal on Slashdot. This would explain the lack of articles about software bugs causing airbags in Ford cars failing to deploy. I know you were just joking, but to some of us, software engineering is serious business.
Such drama. Lots of engineers work on non-life-critical things. That doesn't make them non-engineers.
I would argue that software is different for other reasons. Most software developers/companies cannot be held accountable because changes in the industry are beyond their control.
For example, when engineers design and build, they have to contend with a variety of concerns. Most of these concerns are calculable, limiting, and realistic. As a simple example of the forces of nature, wind power is calculable and only occurs within expected limits. Things are built to withstand extreme winds. But there is a threshold -- we don't build to withstand 5,000mph winds because we know it just won't happen. Wind is wind, it increases or decreases, nothing more.
Software, on the other hand, has the problem of dealing (or not dealing) with unknown circumstances. Developers cannot know that in five years, the platform their product was built on will be obsolete and unusable. Products come and go daily, and support for these products fade just as quickly. Hardware also changes on a daily basis, making it impossible to stand behind your product, the same way an engineer does his. There is no professional obligation for software developers because there are so many unknown variables that come into play.
Here's another way to look at it using the bridge example. If an engineer 50 years ago built a bridge to support the horse and buggy, not knowing that the invention of the modern-day car was on the horizon, he cannot be held accountable for the bridge's collapse under the weight of multiple vehicles.
This is akin to software development. Developers cannot predict the future, consequently cannot plan for it, and ultimately therefore cannot be held accountable for it's failure. Also... The other big reason is that a blue screen of death doesn't result in actual death.
Actually, depending on the context software is used in, it can quite quickly result in death. Planes and automobiles come to mind.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.