In 21 years in this industry I have yet to see a Real Engineering project (i.e. People Can Die) in todays world that is not entirely designed by software, all the tools use one or more forms of embedded software programs, the detailed materials and even the paychecks are generated by yet more software. Programmers also write the software that performs the QA on each piece of steal, plastic, silicon, and flubber before you ever get your hands dirty. Cause even the slightest imperfection in flubber can cause people to die.
Lets make a distinction between web weenies and professional software "Engineers" like myself and the people I work with. Those who are Software Engineers have to know your job before they can do their job. If you forget something on your next freeway job there should be a piece of software that tells you what a wanker you are before you kill someone.
So if you are just using style sheets to pretty up some HTML for home pages with a dabble of JavaScript you should not have the title of Engineer. So I get your point that these guys should never get near the title of Engineer.
However, if you wrote the navigation software for the Global Hawk or the F22 you should get a title much more lofty than the guys working to design a few chip sets with a "Need to Know" barrier who never see's the big picture.
You will never convince me that what hard core coders who's applications save life's every day are not Engineers.
You just have to separate them out based on their impact to the big picture and how much flubber is going to be involved.
Lastly, when you consider how much more rapid the software development industry changes with new frameworks, languages, and platforms, I think begin a Civil Engineer is much easier to keep up with. At this rate I have a new language thrown at me weekly and I have to go find an Engineer and learn their job before I can make the software to help them do theirs .
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In 21 years in this industry I have yet to see a Real Engineering project (i.e. People Can Die) in todays world that is not entirely designed by software, all the tools use one or more forms of embedded software programs, the detailed materials and even the paychecks are generated by yet more software. Programmers also write the software that performs the QA on each piece of steal, plastic, silicon, and flubber before you ever get your hands dirty. Cause even the slightest imperfection in flubber can cause people to die.
Lets make a distinction between web weenies and professional software "Engineers" like myself and the people I work with. Those who are Software Engineers have to know your job before they can do their job. If you forget something on your next freeway job there should be a piece of software that tells you what a wanker you are before you kill someone.
So if you are just using style sheets to pretty up some HTML for home pages with a dabble of JavaScript you should not have the title of Engineer. So I get your point that these guys should never get near the title of Engineer.
However, if you wrote the navigation software for the Global Hawk or the F22 you should get a title much more lofty than the guys working to design a few chip sets with a "Need to Know" barrier who never see's the big picture.
You will never convince me that what hard core coders who's applications save life's every day are not Engineers.
You just have to separate them out based on their impact to the big picture and how much flubber is going to be involved.
Lastly, when you consider how much more rapid the software development industry changes with new frameworks, languages, and platforms, I think begin a Civil Engineer is much easier to keep up with. At this rate I have a new language thrown at me weekly and I have to go find an Engineer and learn their job before I can make the software to help them do theirs .