The term engineer - it's getting a little loose....

[honey the codewitch]

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

[Ravi Bhavnani]

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

[charlieg]

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.

[Ravi Bhavnani]

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

[Richard Andrew x64]

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.

[Mycroft Holmes]

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

[englebart]

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.

[Ravi Bhavnani]

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

[LordWabbit1]

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.

[Peter Adam]

Probably a typo, "Senior Firewball Engineer". Think Gandalf.

[Richard Deeming]

Back in the good old days - you know, the 1600s - "computer" was clearly defined as a person: one who calculates, a reckoner, one whose occupation is to make arithmetical calculations. It seems these days (ie: 1897 and on) they'll randomly assign that term to any old bucket of bolts that can perform a mathematical or logical operation. WTF indeed! :laugh:

---

"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

[5teveH]

Before I got to be a Computer Programmer, I spent four years as a Mechanical Engineer. I've never understood why "engineer" got thrown into the mix. I was happy with "programmer". And fine with "Software Developer". But no... "engineer" is a bit of a stretch. :confused: I'm with your dad on this.

[den2k88]

800V crammed in a 20cm round box, it's FUN!

GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++*      Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X The shortest horror story: On Error Resume Next

[den2k88]

Ravi Bhavnani wrote:

Unlike software engineers, electrical, mechanical, civil, aeronautical and other types of engineers work with extremely well defined specifications.

Tell me you never worked for pharmaceutical, food safety, automotive, avionics, naval, trainlines and biomedical without telling it.

GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++*      Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X The shortest horror story: On Error Resume Next

[Peter Shaw]

It happened a LOT in the UK in the late 80's to mid 90's but back then it wasn't "engineer" that was the thing it was "technician". I was a Computer Kid of the 1980's UK, Grew up with home computers that where primitive by todays standards, Sinclair ZX80/81, Commodore C16+4, Vic 20 and eventually onto the Acorn Machines, BBC B et al. Since the age of 7 I've had an aptitude for this kind of stuff, and by the time I got to the later years in my Secondary School, I was effectively teaching the teachers on what the computers they had in the classrooms could do, so they could in turn be better informed what they where "reading from textbooks" to teach others. As the 90's approached, the MS-DOS PC started to appear in UK homes, and it was a natural fit for me to want to become a "Computer Technician" at the time. I left school and did my various BTEC's etc before spending a few years in the UK military doing communications stuff. When I left the forces in late 1993, I came back to a world where EVERYONE was obsessed by being a "Technician" of some kind, this was bizarre to me as the very word "Technician" implies something that is "Technical" or "Technologically Related". My CV included "Technician" several times as during my BTEC years I had worked part time for a few different companies as a trainee, and companies where salivating over the word in much the same way they salivate over "AI" and such like today. Looking for a job was insane, trying to filter job listings by subjects I knew and including words like "Technician" was a thankless task, I regularly saw things like: "Wanted: local pub requires cleanliness technician to maintain pub facilities" (Basically a pub cleaner) or "Immediate Start: TV Rental's technical customer sales advisement technician" (Basically a sales person who can talk tech) It was the same then as it is now, Out of control marketing idiots allowed to get away with devaluing any word or topic they feel like, in order to push more sales. We've seen a few other terminologies come and go over the years, but now that being an "engineer" of some kind is popular, we are seeing the same thing happen to the word "engineer" and "engineering" as a disciplined profession. Don't even get me started on the HR and recruitment's use of the terminology!!!

[Member_15733390]

In the UK a guy with a mastic gun can be called an engineer. One came to our house a few years ago to fix a leak on the roof of a conservatory his company had recently installed. :laugh:

[hur10forcer10]

I agree - the term has become very loose - too loose in my opinion. The word is regularly being appropriated - maybe to make someone appear smarter than they are (?) but I don't really know the reasoning. I have sat in meetings where attendees hand out business cards that say "Systems Engineer", and I ask them the standard small-talk questions, like "Where did you go to school?" and "What was your major?". Regarding their major, I've heard everything from "Business" to "Accounting" to "Marketing" to "Management". They often start squirming and come up with some justification saying, "Well, I've been around engineering and engineers for a long time." Yeah, I've been around doctors a long time, but you wouldn't want me doing your vasectomy. :)

[Member 10415611]

Related to the humorous aspect of this post, I have a friend who worked in the building industry in the UK mostly as a bricklayer. He told me he had a series of jobs working in crematoriums building the “ovens” with special fireproof bricks. I guess he’d qualify as a firewall engineer! On a more serious note, I’ve said b4 on this forum, the use of the term “engineer” is highly regulated in most jurisdictions (I’m familiar with Canada, USA & UK). You cannot call yourself an engineer unless u have a recognized engineering degree & you have met the conditions to get a license to practice such as a P.Eng.(Canada), P.E.(US) or C.E.(UK) or similar elsewhere. If you call yourself an engineer without a license & you are reported, the relevant governing body (e.g. Professional Engineers Ontario where I live) will pursue you. It’s usually people like those who call themselves HVAC engineers who fix furnaces & A/C units that get in trouble but I have seen one or two cases where something similar to software engineer got someone in trouble. In most cases, the resolution is a warning to stop using the term engineer but I’ve seen cases where the courts fined those ignoring the warning.

[MootlyObviate]

Back in the early 80s (can't speak to much earlier or later since that is when I was in college) most of the major technical colleges (one of which I was attending) referred to their programming degrees as Software Engineering. Why? Most likely because there were two camps, science and engineering, and you had to be in one or the other. The Computer Science side, which included both hardware and software, was much more abstract and theoretical and, at the time, tended not to produce people doing the actual work. The disappearance of SE degrees in favor of CS degrees and the "developer" moniker came later as programming degrees proliferated. Probably because the other engineering programs derided software engineering as a degree for people who couldn't hack being "real" engineers so both sides felt the need for an amicable divorce. Given what started happening at that time, I'm sure many of those newly minted SE's were crying all the way to the bank a few short years later.

[Alister Morton]

The one that got me was "sandwich artist". Take a guess where I saw that position advertised.