Software engineering? Like firmware or medical stuff?
Or are you talking about programming that has very few real life responsibilities that actual engineers deal with?
I know I'm being pedantic but I'm curious if the abuse of "engineering" reaches into tech academia. I would hope that higher ed stuff would avoid the misrepresentation but I don't know what to expect from Americans anymore.
No worries, I'm Belgian and here we have general engineering studies that we call "civil engineering", this is divided in subcategories like "material, mechanical, chemical, etc." For example at the moment I'm studying software and electrical engineering, which amounts to a bit of programming but with a large focus on the maths and theory behind it, designing processors and a fuckton of algebra. I'm not sure what that translates to in other countries. I'm guessing the US idea of a civil engineer would be more of a mechanical engineer or an engineer-architect. Anyways in my case the responsibilities would be largely gone and I'd probably end up working behind my laptop all day, which is why I'm quitting these studies in the first place. Hope this cleared it up a bit!
In the US there are legal consequences and liabilities involved with using the title of "engineer" but the word is still casually (and not-so-casually) used to describe programming occupations.
Software engineering is almost always about architecture and infrastructure, rarely touches on programming. In fact most software engineers aren't exactly amazing programmers. That still holds true in the US.
Software never gets into any engineering. Even if it's in a car, plane, or maglev train, software makers aren't involved in the legal and ethical regulations and guidelines licensed engineers have to go through. Software workers aren't apprenticed, nor are they tested by the state. The tech industry has grabbed at the term "engineer" just so their unreliable work can at least be legitimized in marketing alone.
software makers aren’t involved in the legal and ethical regulations
This is wrong
guidelines licensed engineers have to go through
This is also wrong
Software workers aren’t apprenticed
This is wrong in a lot of cases
It sounds like you have kind of a chip on your shoulder about this term and are wrong about a lot of things that software engineers do. Just because the solutions designed are not physically real (which especially holds true with infrastructure as code) does not mean that they are not engineered or architected.
If you wish to take "engineer" as a verb then yeah, people engineer and manufacture and plan and whatever. "Engineer" as a noun, or as an occupation, is different. Software "engineers" don't go through FE tests. The legal ramifications are simply not comparable.
I do have a chip on my shoulder because two of my siblings are real engineers, not "techies with degrees and an ethics class maybe".
Oh lord you're gatekeeping something that doesn't even impact you. Literally half the engineers I work with came from other disciplines like electrical or mechanical but ended up in software because they preferred it over their background. What a very odd hill to die on.
Not an odd hill to die on. The names of professions shouldn't be dictated by marketing teams, especially when the names they think of have serious legal implications.
What serious legal implications are you on about? I work with three security teams, an ethics board, and legal. My software doesn't even touch anything that would come close to causing harm, and that's just in my area.
In some states, it's illegal to advertise oneself as an "engineer" if they're not the kind of engineer that is recognized by the NCEES. That's not the norm, usually just falsely claiming to be an engineer is simply annoying and left at that.
I mean, the term has existed since '60s so it's not like this is a marketing thing that's brand new or anything, and the NCEES used to offer it. I dunno if I give a shit what Texas state law says about anything, really. But again I don't get your weird gatekeeping over the term, it sounds kind of like a pet peeve that's not even yours that you've picked up as a cause.
The term "software engineer" has been used since the 60's in an effort to elicit some kind of sophisticated creation of software for the purpose of handling NATO nuclear warheads. There was a pretty obvious and explicit desire to have reliable code for something that deadly, and the care into making that software could be described as "engineering" but the use of the term was nonetheless criticized anyway because it took decades for the related software development to be satisfactory for NATO.
And, to be perfectly honest, I don't think it's as important to get your stuff made right as it was for NATO.
There was no single source. Margaret Hamilton used it entirely unbidden by that application to describe what she was doing for the Apollo missions.
I've worked with dozens and dozens of mechanical, electrical, optical, and environmental engineers as well as scientists and you are literally the first person I've ever spoken to who has given any shits about this.
I mean I have met run-of-the-mill web devs and Java coders that call themselves "software engineers" so the term is abused too much to bother giving many graces.
Yeah I again don't really see any issue with that nor have any of my colleagues expressed any concern over that whatsoever. It's sort of like getting mad at the number of deans in American colleges like yes, there's a sort of title spam happening there, but it's irrelevant because who gives a fuck
Software engineering? Like firmware or medical stuff?
Or are you talking about programming that has very few real life responsibilities that actual engineers deal with?
I know I'm being pedantic but I'm curious if the abuse of "engineering" reaches into tech academia. I would hope that higher ed stuff would avoid the misrepresentation but I don't know what to expect from Americans anymore.
No worries, I'm Belgian and here we have general engineering studies that we call "civil engineering", this is divided in subcategories like "material, mechanical, chemical, etc." For example at the moment I'm studying software and electrical engineering, which amounts to a bit of programming but with a large focus on the maths and theory behind it, designing processors and a fuckton of algebra. I'm not sure what that translates to in other countries. I'm guessing the US idea of a civil engineer would be more of a mechanical engineer or an engineer-architect. Anyways in my case the responsibilities would be largely gone and I'd probably end up working behind my laptop all day, which is why I'm quitting these studies in the first place. Hope this cleared it up a bit!
Nice, hope that goes well with you :3
In the US there are legal consequences and liabilities involved with using the title of "engineer" but the word is still casually (and not-so-casually) used to describe programming occupations.
Software engineering is almost always about architecture and infrastructure, rarely touches on programming. In fact most software engineers aren't exactly amazing programmers. That still holds true in the US.
Source: am software engineer at a startup
ok whatever
Software never gets into any engineering. Even if it's in a car, plane, or maglev train, software makers aren't involved in the legal and ethical regulations and guidelines licensed engineers have to go through. Software workers aren't apprenticed, nor are they tested by the state. The tech industry has grabbed at the term "engineer" just so their unreliable work can at least be legitimized in marketing alone.
This is wrong
This is also wrong
This is wrong in a lot of cases
It sounds like you have kind of a chip on your shoulder about this term and are wrong about a lot of things that software engineers do. Just because the solutions designed are not physically real (which especially holds true with infrastructure as code) does not mean that they are not engineered or architected.
If you wish to take "engineer" as a verb then yeah, people engineer and manufacture and plan and whatever. "Engineer" as a noun, or as an occupation, is different. Software "engineers" don't go through FE tests. The legal ramifications are simply not comparable.
I do have a chip on my shoulder because two of my siblings are real engineers, not "techies with degrees and an ethics class maybe".
Oh lord you're gatekeeping something that doesn't even impact you. Literally half the engineers I work with came from other disciplines like electrical or mechanical but ended up in software because they preferred it over their background. What a very odd hill to die on.
Not an odd hill to die on. The names of professions shouldn't be dictated by marketing teams, especially when the names they think of have serious legal implications.
What serious legal implications are you on about? I work with three security teams, an ethics board, and legal. My software doesn't even touch anything that would come close to causing harm, and that's just in my area.
you can start with this
In some states, it's illegal to advertise oneself as an "engineer" if they're not the kind of engineer that is recognized by the NCEES. That's not the norm, usually just falsely claiming to be an engineer is simply annoying and left at that.
I mean, the term has existed since '60s so it's not like this is a marketing thing that's brand new or anything, and the NCEES used to offer it. I dunno if I give a shit what Texas state law says about anything, really. But again I don't get your weird gatekeeping over the term, it sounds kind of like a pet peeve that's not even yours that you've picked up as a cause.
The term "software engineer" has been used since the 60's in an effort to elicit some kind of sophisticated creation of software for the purpose of handling NATO nuclear warheads. There was a pretty obvious and explicit desire to have reliable code for something that deadly, and the care into making that software could be described as "engineering" but the use of the term was nonetheless criticized anyway because it took decades for the related software development to be satisfactory for NATO.
And, to be perfectly honest, I don't think it's as important to get your stuff made right as it was for NATO.
There was no single source. Margaret Hamilton used it entirely unbidden by that application to describe what she was doing for the Apollo missions.
I've worked with dozens and dozens of mechanical, electrical, optical, and environmental engineers as well as scientists and you are literally the first person I've ever spoken to who has given any shits about this.
okay I concede it's silly of me to be pedantic with someone who does softwares in such a multi-disciplinary implementation
I mean if that's the case aren't you still risking being pedantic with others without knowing what they do?
I mean I have met run-of-the-mill web devs and Java coders that call themselves "software engineers" so the term is abused too much to bother giving many graces.
Yeah I again don't really see any issue with that nor have any of my colleagues expressed any concern over that whatsoever. It's sort of like getting mad at the number of deans in American colleges like yes, there's a sort of title spam happening there, but it's irrelevant because who gives a fuck