The term engineer - it's getting a little loose....
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Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I agree. Most software is not engineered. Web stuff in particular. I'm a software developer.
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I agree. Most software is not engineered. Web stuff in particular. I'm a software developer.
I use the term lightly - engineer. 120v scares me, 240+ I want to pee. 480 and up? hell no. There is some spooky **** mechanical engineers do as well as civil engineers (other than making targets - google it). Then there comes chemical engineers that I salute, and nukes I just see in the distance as they glow. I have the degree for an EE. I wrote software most of my life. Sooo, when I started calling myself a sw engineer, my better half slapped me sideways - you are an EE and don't forget it. So, since then I'm an EE but I write software. Mostly embedded but I can do desktop as well. And I respect electricity. :) I still want to know wtf is a firewall engineer. I get the idea, but really?
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I will weigh in on both sides of this. Engineering has a history of what emerged as accepted designs, formulas, and processes that generally produce safe, reliable products. Software can't make this claim, though I'd say that OO and patterns, in most settings, are an step in that direction. But systems are very diverse, so software remains far more craft and art than it does engineering. On the other hand, much of my career (starting in 1981) was spent in a company whose products were becoming more and more dependent on software, and less so on hardware. Consequently, many EE types moved into software. Yes, they could do it, and most had a smattering of it in university, but few were or became good at it. I said it was like putting me in an EE role if my expertise was that I'd noodled around, building speakers in my basement. One major difference, as I see it, is that the essence of software systems is evolution. Expecting a bridge to be lengthened by 30m as part of its "next release" would provoke derisive laughter, yet the equivalent is commonplace when working on software. How to deal with this is a central challenge.
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The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -
Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Today there are so-called "engineering" students whose Bachelor's degree specialization is "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning". Am not exactly sure whether these students will be engineers when they come out with the degree. And once this AI hullabaloo dies down, where can they be employed, employable?
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Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
charlieg wrote:
"Senior Firewall Engineer."
sounds to me like a fancy bricklayer. Also the apocryphal
Yesterday I couldn't spell Engineer. Today I are one!
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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charlieg wrote:
"Senior Firewall Engineer."
sounds to me like a fancy bricklayer. Also the apocryphal
Yesterday I couldn't spell Engineer. Today I are one!
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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I will weigh in on both sides of this. Engineering has a history of what emerged as accepted designs, formulas, and processes that generally produce safe, reliable products. Software can't make this claim, though I'd say that OO and patterns, in most settings, are an step in that direction. But systems are very diverse, so software remains far more craft and art than it does engineering. On the other hand, much of my career (starting in 1981) was spent in a company whose products were becoming more and more dependent on software, and less so on hardware. Consequently, many EE types moved into software. Yes, they could do it, and most had a smattering of it in university, but few were or became good at it. I said it was like putting me in an EE role if my expertise was that I'd noodled around, building speakers in my basement. One major difference, as I see it, is that the essence of software systems is evolution. Expecting a bridge to be lengthened by 30m as part of its "next release" would provoke derisive laughter, yet the equivalent is commonplace when working on software. How to deal with this is a central challenge.
Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.I agree. What "triggered" me - in a humorous way - was the term Firewall Engineer. I'm still chuckling. I think I would lean more toward an engineer having more solid foundations in the basic sciences - physics, thermo, etc. Having said that, I have NEVER seen an engineer including myself pound out code like some of the CompSci folks I've worked with. Looking at the code witch as an example. I've worked with a few others. The code springs from their fingers, and their minds work at a level that makes me dizzy. There was a book a read long ago about Star Wars. Not the movie, but President Reagan's vision of strategic missile defense. One of the pillars of the concept was the space based X-Ray laser. This was a device that was nuclear bomb powered - you aimed the lasing rods at targets and detonated the weapon where upon the x-rays from the detonation were directed at targets. Now, there are treaties and all sorts of problems putting (more?) nuclear weapons in orbit, but the idea came from some Lawrence Livermore PhD (might have been CalTech, I forget) who had a blue sky moment. He spent the next few days pounding out simulation code to validate his idea. The concept had such potential that they piggy backed it on an upcoming nuclear weapons test. Yes, at the time the US was still detonating weapons under ground (mainly to develop the data so that designs could be confidently simulated). As I recall, the test was not successful, it was wildly successful. Anyway, I still want to know what a firewall engineer is :laugh:
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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I use the term lightly - engineer. 120v scares me, 240+ I want to pee. 480 and up? hell no. There is some spooky **** mechanical engineers do as well as civil engineers (other than making targets - google it). Then there comes chemical engineers that I salute, and nukes I just see in the distance as they glow. I have the degree for an EE. I wrote software most of my life. Sooo, when I started calling myself a sw engineer, my better half slapped me sideways - you are an EE and don't forget it. So, since then I'm an EE but I write software. Mostly embedded but I can do desktop as well. And I respect electricity. :) I still want to know wtf is a firewall engineer. I get the idea, but really?
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
-
Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I've never been comfortable calling myself an engineer, but it's because I view programming as more of an art, a knack. What I mean is with a system of any significant complexity things get complex rather than complicated in software, and the ability to repeat the project with a different set of developers is effectively nil. Sure you can fulfill the same functional requirements, but the software will work entirely differently. The electrical engineers I work with produce highly repeatable designs, for lack of a better way to express what I'm talking about. And if I put a different team of engineers on the same project replicated twice, the results, while not identical, will be much more consistent between the two teams than they are with software. That's not how I would define engineering though - like I don't want to commit a no true scotsman fallacy here. Rather, I'm trying to give an example where programming is more ... organic? messy? at the end of the day non-repeatable. So among other reasons, that's why I'm uncomfortable with the term "software engineer", especially as it applies to me and the way I code.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
My 2¢ worth:
- "Programmer", "software developer" and "software engineer" are often lumped together and mean the same thing: a person who creates and modifies software. I don't have an issue with candidates describing themselves using any of these terms.
- Unlike software engineers, electrical, mechanical, civil, aeronautical and other types of engineers work with extremely well defined specifications. Experienced software engineers will design for extensibility and robustness (for example by building loosely coupled components) but this isn't guaranteed. Consequently, software often evolves in a manner that eventually causes it to become overly complicated and difficult or impossible to maintain, requiring The Great Rewrite.
- We software developers could learn a lot from the folks who engineered the modern day lightbulb. I can use a modern tri-light LED bulb in a 1960s lamp without worrying about compatibility. The tri-light feature may not work if the socket doesn't support it, but the lamp's operation will gracefully degrade to a simpler behavior. Granted, software is more complex, but you've gotta give credit to the designers of the light bulb and the machines that allow light bulbs to be manufactured, for designing for change.
/ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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My 2¢ worth:
- "Programmer", "software developer" and "software engineer" are often lumped together and mean the same thing: a person who creates and modifies software. I don't have an issue with candidates describing themselves using any of these terms.
- Unlike software engineers, electrical, mechanical, civil, aeronautical and other types of engineers work with extremely well defined specifications. Experienced software engineers will design for extensibility and robustness (for example by building loosely coupled components) but this isn't guaranteed. Consequently, software often evolves in a manner that eventually causes it to become overly complicated and difficult or impossible to maintain, requiring The Great Rewrite.
- We software developers could learn a lot from the folks who engineered the modern day lightbulb. I can use a modern tri-light LED bulb in a 1960s lamp without worrying about compatibility. The tri-light feature may not work if the socket doesn't support it, but the lamp's operation will gracefully degrade to a simpler behavior. Granted, software is more complex, but you've gotta give credit to the designers of the light bulb and the machines that allow light bulbs to be manufactured, for designing for change.
/ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
honest assessment. But the point of the post was - tongue in cheek - what is a firewall engineer. The general consensus is a brick layer :). This is the lounge folks, you are failing me.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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honest assessment. But the point of the post was - tongue in cheek - what is a firewall engineer. The general consensus is a brick layer :). This is the lounge folks, you are failing me.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
charlieg wrote:
his is the lounge folks, you are failing me.
Apologies! :-D /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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My 2¢ worth:
- "Programmer", "software developer" and "software engineer" are often lumped together and mean the same thing: a person who creates and modifies software. I don't have an issue with candidates describing themselves using any of these terms.
- Unlike software engineers, electrical, mechanical, civil, aeronautical and other types of engineers work with extremely well defined specifications. Experienced software engineers will design for extensibility and robustness (for example by building loosely coupled components) but this isn't guaranteed. Consequently, software often evolves in a manner that eventually causes it to become overly complicated and difficult or impossible to maintain, requiring The Great Rewrite.
- We software developers could learn a lot from the folks who engineered the modern day lightbulb. I can use a modern tri-light LED bulb in a 1960s lamp without worrying about compatibility. The tri-light feature may not work if the socket doesn't support it, but the lamp's operation will gracefully degrade to a simpler behavior. Granted, software is more complex, but you've gotta give credit to the designers of the light bulb and the machines that allow light bulbs to be manufactured, for designing for change.
/ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
You make an interesting point about the lightbulb. Is your point that we need to design new systems so that they comfortably interface with old systems?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
My old man (who was a civil engineer) would be laughing in his grave looking at some of the people who call themselves engineers. He would also smack me silly if I called myself a "software engineer", even from the grave I suspect.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Maybe they are looking for someone with construction experience or car engineering to help design a true firewall. Computer networking adopted firewall as a good stand in from other industries that worried about actual fires: in the adjacent apartment or the engine compartment.
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You make an interesting point about the lightbulb. Is your point that we need to design new systems so that they comfortably interface with old systems?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
I was advocating designing software in a way that makes it easier to extend and change, when change is warranted. Some ways of achieving this is by modularity, maintaining separation of concerns, abstraction, loose coupling and encapsulation. While following these principles won't guarantee the software we build will be easy to extend and modify, not doing any of these things will almost certainly ensure that it will be difficult to extend the software. cf: Bob Martin's story about the Sword C++ debugger. Clean Code with Uncle Bob Episode 1[^] /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Just wanted to toss this out here and ask a question. Long before I earned my EE degree (yes, I know all about motors and other things), my dad was an EE for IBM. His favorite phrase when it was recruiting season was "I can teach an engineer how to program, I cannot teach a programmer how to engineer." Yeah, maybe a bit bigoted but work with me. This was in the late 70s early 80s, so the term "software engineer" had not been coined yet. At my university, you could get a degree in computer science but that was it. Engineers used punch cards to talk to the IBM. Those other people got to use the terminals :). So, I'm poking around on dice.com and I come across a job entry for "Senior Firewall Engineer." wtf
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Couldn't agree more - I am not even comfortable with the term "Software Engineer". "If engineers built like programmers code the first wood pecker that came along would destroy civilization." I forget who said it, but it's so true. It reminds me of peons giving themselves grander and grander titles to stroke their egos. FYI - I am a programmer, and I take offense at being called a "Software Engineer". Engineers work for a living, programmers copy paste code from StackOverflow for a living.
