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Should Programmers Be Called Engineers? (theatlantic.com)
New submitter nervouscat writes: Game designer Ian Bogost argues that programmers shouldn't use the term "engineer" to describe themselves. He says the tech industry has "cheapened" the title, and that it's more aspirational than anything else. Quoting: "Traditional engineers are regulated, certified, and subject to apprenticeship and continuing education. Engineering claims an explicit responsibility to public safety and reliability, even if it doesn’t always deliver. ... Today’s computer systems pose individual and communal dangers that we’d never accept in more concrete structures like bridges, skyscrapers, power plants, and missile-defense systems. Apple’s iOS 9 update reportedly “bricked” certain phones, making them unusable. Services like Google Docs go down for mysterious reasons, leaving those whose work depends on them in a lurch. ... When it comes to skyscrapers and bridges and power plants and elevators and the like, engineering has been, and will continue to be, managed partly by professional standards, and partly by regulation around the expertise and duties of engineers. But fifty years’ worth of attempts to turn software development into a legitimate engineering practice have failed."
Yep. We wouldn't let self-proclaimed civil engineers build bridges.
Why do we let self-proclaimed programmers write important software?
Who makes that decision to call somebody a proper civil engineer?
A government bureaucrat. All you are complaining about here is that the government is too small and that taxes are too low. Be careful for what you wish, as you wish might just be granted in a case like this. Do you really want software development to be heavily regulated?
Go back to your tea party Libertard, the big bad government does NOT certify engineers. They certify themselves through professional organizations much like doctors and lawyers, the costs of which are paid for by membership fees, NOT taxes.
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