Yes. You have to have an Engineering degree to become a P. Eng. You have to first be trained as an Engineer before you can be allowed to become one professionally. (Makes sense, yes?)
Computer Engineering's focus is profoundly different than Computer Science's.
Passing a test doesn't make you a good programmer. Being trained as an Engineer makes you a good designer of systems, no matter what type of system you're designing. If this system happens to be a computer program, so be it.
Would you feel more secure if the building you were living in were designed by an Engineer or less? What about the software that drives the pacemaker for your heart? I know I'd feel a lot safer if an Engineer had designed the system that was keeping me from having a heart attack in the middle of a busy road.
Besides - The type of software we're talking about is critical systems software that's usually written by Engineers anyway.
A non-trivial piece of software isn't any more complex than a bridge. I don't know how much physics you've taken but the math behind a bridge is complex and it's really easy to make a mistake. That's why Engineers built tools (including computer modeling tools - which are written by certified engineers) to help them build bridges. Still, if you conceive it properly and test it adequately, a design should never fail in a real world situation.
A properly designed program is inherently flawless because it was designed before it was implemented.
If you tried to create a bridge by building it as you went, chances are it would collapse. You would have no way of knowing until it was finished and people were using it. The same goes for software.
The whole idea behind top down design and modular programming is that you're breaking software down into small pieces that perform a single task. If you know each module performs its task and only its task and does it properly, the software won't crash!
As an Engineer you're held liable if something you design breaks. So you'd better make damn sure you get it 100% correct.
Engineering isn't about knowledge, it's about design. Engineers design systems. Software (just like electricity and machines) are just tools; means to an end if you will.
As a future Engineer I'd just like to inform you that such a body already exists. In Ontario it's the PEO - the Professional Engineers of Ontario.
You write certification tests, you pay your license fees and you can put your name on a system verifying that its design is correct and according to current knowledge and that you've tested it to acceptable standards. If you put your name on a system that fails, you could lose your license. If people were endagered by the failure of your system you're almost guaranteed to never work as an Engineer again.
The article mentioned that broadband access prices jumped by $5 to $10. That's just one more reason it's good to live in Canada, I guess - The CRTC (Like the FCC in the U.S.) capped broadband prices years ago.
Did anybody else notice that the speech had several glaring spelling and grammar errors in it? You'd think an entity like the RIAA could afford to hire and editor, geez...
I saw something interesting in the posting. A proposed boycott of Compaq?
I'm going to make a comparison here.
You go to the corner store and buy a few 5 cent candies. All well and good. For whatever reason you decide to boycott the store that sells them.
A nationwide chain isn't going to be affected by the loss of your penny candy sales. Besides, you couldn't afford their bigger items anyway.
And along comes a company or two. They give exclusive purchasing contracts to this chain of corner stores. Two multinational companies have just destroyed any effectiveness a consumer boycott might have possibly had.
Compaq doesn't care about end user sales. They have at least those two companies providing more revenue than personal sales ever could and buying up new rounds of hardware (bundled with Microsoft Software I might add) every five years.
The plant that's local to me has 2500 nodes in the engine plant alone, all Compaqs. And this is a small plant.
I don't know about other predators, but sharks will stay far far away from these I would think. Sharks have electroreceptors. That's why they can find food even in the dark or in water filled with blood.
Flamebait much?
Anyway... If you can't buy a gun without registering it, how are you supposed to get ahold of an unregistered weapon? That's the whole idea of registration in the first place.
Maybe they have access to it, but I don't want to pay $1000 for a doctor to tell me he can't help me.
I'm not saying the CRTC hasn't made mistakes. They haven't always made the best decisions but they're promoting the interests of everyone in Canada. The government, as I said in my post above, is not out to get you. The government exists for the good of us all.
One thing that has to be said for Canada is that society's rights are more important than individuals'. Our government isn't out to screw us over; government exists to represent the interests of everyone. You can write a letter and get a personal response from elected officials. I've done it. If enough people express their concerns, things change.
Digital Media levies kinda piss me off. I would change that if I could. But having registered firearms is a great thing. If someone gets murdered with a gun, the police know where to start their investigation.
As to privately run health care, have you seen what that's done to the health system in the US?
The CRTC has its good points. Canadian content laws make sure that great Canadian shows don't get displaced by the latest and greatest Power Rangers show. Plus they've capped the cost of high speed Internet access and lowered the cost of phone service by encouraging competition (even if they didn't go about it quite the way I'd like to have seen).
Again, I'd rather see collective rights than individual ones.
If nobody is concerned about the way things are headed, then something must be dreadfully wrong:) That's true in any country's case, I'd hope.
I don't recall anything like this happening to CD burners in Canada. We don't have the right (or the need) to bear arms.
As for the right to bear arms... The United States had no army other than Militia when their country was created. That's why the right to bear arms exists at all.
The best (only?) way to make real money with a free product on the Internet is to sell advertising. Large conglomerates (Microsoft is a prime example) usually release free software in an attempt to gain market share.
Of course in the case of IE, that really doesn't do them any good except for killing competition. Sounds like it's useful but I don't think it is because if they decided to charge for the next upgrade of IE there would probably be a lynching (or several hundred) in Redmund.
The thing that particularly pisses me off about the Spam I receive is that my ISP has me on a distribution list. All the customers of my ISP get the same spam every time it's sent out because the nameless ISP is selling its user list to the spammers! I have multiple e-mail logins and every one gets a copy of the spam.
And Hotmail does the same thing (one reason I refuse to use it). I signed up for a Hotmail account. By the time I managed to log in, I had a message in my Inbox about "Hot naked women!".
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. You have to have an Engineering degree to become a P. Eng. You have to first be trained as an Engineer before you can be allowed to become one professionally. (Makes sense, yes?)
Computer Engineering's focus is profoundly different than Computer Science's.
Passing a test doesn't make you a good programmer. Being trained as an Engineer makes you a good designer of systems, no matter what type of system you're designing. If this system happens to be a computer program, so be it.
Would you feel more secure if the building you were living in were designed by an Engineer or less? What about the software that drives the pacemaker for your heart? I know I'd feel a lot safer if an Engineer had designed the system that was keeping me from having a heart attack in the middle of a busy road.
Besides - The type of software we're talking about is critical systems software that's usually written by Engineers anyway.
This is crap. It's pure tripe.
A non-trivial piece of software isn't any more complex than a bridge. I don't know how much physics you've taken but the math behind a bridge is complex and it's really easy to make a mistake. That's why Engineers built tools (including computer modeling tools - which are written by certified engineers) to help them build bridges. Still, if you conceive it properly and test it adequately, a design should never fail in a real world situation.
A properly designed program is inherently flawless because it was designed before it was implemented.
If you tried to create a bridge by building it as you went, chances are it would collapse. You would have no way of knowing until it was finished and people were using it. The same goes for software.
The whole idea behind top down design and modular programming is that you're breaking software down into small pieces that perform a single task. If you know each module performs its task and only its task and does it properly, the software won't crash!
As an Engineer you're held liable if something you design breaks. So you'd better make damn sure you get it 100% correct.
Engineering isn't about knowledge, it's about design. Engineers design systems. Software (just like electricity and machines) are just tools; means to an end if you will.
As a future Engineer I'd just like to inform you that such a body already exists. In Ontario it's the PEO - the Professional Engineers of Ontario.
You write certification tests, you pay your license fees and you can put your name on a system verifying that its design is correct and according to current knowledge and that you've tested it to acceptable standards. If you put your name on a system that fails, you could lose your license. If people were endagered by the failure of your system you're almost guaranteed to never work as an Engineer again.
Hate speech, bigotry and diffamation are _not_ covered under "Freedom of Speech".
The article mentioned that broadband access prices jumped by $5 to $10. That's just one more reason it's good to live in Canada, I guess - The CRTC (Like the FCC in the U.S.) capped broadband prices years ago.
Boy, don't I feel like an idiot...
and editor = an editor;
Did anybody else notice that the speech had several glaring spelling and grammar errors in it? You'd think an entity like the RIAA could afford to hire and editor, geez...
I saw something interesting in the posting. A proposed boycott of Compaq?
I'm going to make a comparison here.
You go to the corner store and buy a few 5 cent candies. All well and good. For whatever reason you decide to boycott the store that sells them.
A nationwide chain isn't going to be affected by the loss of your penny candy sales. Besides, you couldn't afford their bigger items anyway.
And along comes a company or two. They give exclusive purchasing contracts to this chain of corner stores. Two multinational companies have just destroyed any effectiveness a consumer boycott might have possibly had.
Compaq doesn't care about end user sales. They have at least those two companies providing more revenue than personal sales ever could and buying up new rounds of hardware (bundled with Microsoft Software I might add) every five years.
The plant that's local to me has 2500 nodes in the engine plant alone, all Compaqs. And this is a small plant.
A boycott won't even make them blink.
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Guess I should've seen this one coming...
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I don't know about other predators, but sharks will stay far far away from these I would think. Sharks have electroreceptors. That's why they can find food even in the dark or in water filled with blood.
--
Flamebait much? Anyway... If you can't buy a gun without registering it, how are you supposed to get ahold of an unregistered weapon? That's the whole idea of registration in the first place. Maybe they have access to it, but I don't want to pay $1000 for a doctor to tell me he can't help me. I'm not saying the CRTC hasn't made mistakes. They haven't always made the best decisions but they're promoting the interests of everyone in Canada. The government, as I said in my post above, is not out to get you. The government exists for the good of us all.
--
One thing that has to be said for Canada is that society's rights are more important than individuals'. Our government isn't out to screw us over; government exists to represent the interests of everyone. You can write a letter and get a personal response from elected officials. I've done it. If enough people express their concerns, things change.
Digital Media levies kinda piss me off. I would change that if I could. But having registered firearms is a great thing. If someone gets murdered with a gun, the police know where to start their investigation.
As to privately run health care, have you seen what that's done to the health system in the US?
The CRTC has its good points. Canadian content laws make sure that great Canadian shows don't get displaced by the latest and greatest Power Rangers show. Plus they've capped the cost of high speed Internet access and lowered the cost of phone service by encouraging competition (even if they didn't go about it quite the way I'd like to have seen).
Again, I'd rather see collective rights than individual ones.
If nobody is concerned about the way things are headed, then something must be dreadfully wrong :) That's true in any country's case, I'd hope.
--
Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
--
Not quite true. Japan was voted as #1 for one year but then they lost it back to us because of polution and overcrowding.
--
I don't recall anything like this happening to CD burners in Canada. We don't have the right (or the need) to bear arms. As for the right to bear arms... The United States had no army other than Militia when their country was created. That's why the right to bear arms exists at all.
The best (only?) way to make real money with a free product on the Internet is to sell advertising. Large conglomerates (Microsoft is a prime example) usually release free software in an attempt to gain market share. Of course in the case of IE, that really doesn't do them any good except for killing competition. Sounds like it's useful but I don't think it is because if they decided to charge for the next upgrade of IE there would probably be a lynching (or several hundred) in Redmund.
Not ten minutes after I created an @Home e-mail account for my parents, they were getting the same spam I was. Thanks for selling my address, @Home.
I'll get you next time, Gadget! Next time!!
Heheh...
The thing that particularly pisses me off about the Spam I receive is that my ISP has me on a distribution list. All the customers of my ISP get the same spam every time it's sent out because the nameless ISP is selling its user list to the spammers! I have multiple e-mail logins and every one gets a copy of the spam.
And Hotmail does the same thing (one reason I refuse to use it). I signed up for a Hotmail account. By the time I managed to log in, I had a message in my Inbox about "Hot naked women!".