First: forget about software being an "engineering" discipline. It is not. Engineering deals with building physical things, to deal with physical problems. Their design process is entirely different from ours. They spend a huge amount of time perfecting a design up-front, testing it in computer simulations to make sure it won't fall apart under load, building a prototype and destructively testing it, etc. Then they spend another significant amount of time figuring out exactly how best to build the product efficiently. THEN AND ONLY THEN do they actually start building the product.
Where do I fall? Trained as an Electronic Engineer. Got a Bachelors degree in Engineering. My academic work though was almost exclusively software based (read: "programming"). What I do know is almost exclusively software based.
I develop embedded solutions for industrial controllers (For big drills and bending machines and the like). As such I deal with the building of physical thing and physical problems.
I spend a huge amount of time perfecting my design up front (Get the info together, decide on my data-structures, program structure, UML, requirements specs etc.). I test in computer simulations (you know what a unit-test is) and in various ways I performa activities analogous to load-testing, prototype development and destructive testing. In my business an integer overflow causes someones arm to be squashed. It all must be right. Even after my product leaves me it is extensively tested as a part of the completed system.
So roughly speaking, by your definition, I am an engineer. But, my day-to-day activities involve assembler, C, and alsorts of other software related stuff. But Software isn't engineering. What the heck am I?
We're mathematicians modelling thought for the benefit of our society, creating machines which can enhance the power of our minds. WE are the accelerant speeding the growth of our culture, because WE are the steroid that is causing our intellectual capacity to grow faster than it could ever evolve on its own. Just look at the internet itself: it is so much more vast, and has so much more potential than the library at Alexandria. WE created that. WE made this happen.
And, now, we are considered a burden that must be outsourced. It's ironic, isn't it? Corporations who owe us their very ability to do business worldwide have no gratitude or loyalty for us, and are brushing us aside as though we don't exist. We're just line items to them.
You are obnoxious and smelly. You overevaluate your value to society. People like YOU are annoying and whiney and are best kept at a distance. Like maybe china or india distance. Which is why you're jobs are going there. We don't have to hear weeney whining from there.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it just me or is that a really cool idea? Why am I the only person expressing my approval to this?
/.?
Surely this could be a good proactive start to dealing with what is becoming a big problem.
Who's into doing something like this?
or do we just stick to bitching and whining on
Interesting.
Tell me more...
Any web-links or anything on this?