As an experienced real engineer with advanced math, physics, chemistry, static’s, dynamics, economic analysis, project management , and discipline specific engineering skills, I find it offensive that software developers are being called engineers. They are not engineers. This is a mislabel and is offensive to us REAL engineers.
Oh, and did I mention I also code.
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Or what about "civil" engineer?
sanitation engineer?
Ok. The worst title is Data Scientist given to coders 😂.
The important role software developers play is in making processes user friendly with guis and fancy graphics.
What about “Sales Engineers”
Engineers build THINGS. Developers work with said things. It hasn’t been engineered unless you can hit it with a sledgehammer.
All "engineers" do these days is put inputs into a computer and ask for an answer. You want to know whether a building will stand up to stress? Ask a computer. Should we layoff this department? Ask a computer. What's wrong with a patient? Do some lab tests and ask the computer for an answer. That's what every office worker does: ask a computer for the answer. The Empire State Building was built before computers, but these days put group of certified engineers and architects with advanced training together without a computer, and they couldn't make a dog house. On the other hand, I can guarantee you the software engineers who made Autocad could make the next skyscraper without a computer.
Ok wow this argument is as old as computers.
And you really are going there arent ya… oh how cute. So you must pass some ovey musty exam to prove you are a PE (‘professional’ engineer). Oh i heard this once nearly 25 yrs ago from an unemployed ‘engineer’ who was wining about his job and softwarw being held to a higher bar..
IBM was trying, over 30 yrs ago, to get software as a PE level exam classification.
It didnt work, ya know why??? Because the software change rate outpaced a stupid exam.
We dont build bridges or electronic circuits we do tely on them but our task is to bring them relevance cuz without software your hardware is nearly unuseable.
Grow up wake up and see that the world dropped slide rules and steam punk mechanics for software and ai… its a new world and it’s incredible
agreed 100%, you can only be an engineer if you have been to an engineering school and earned a 4-yrs engineering degree. otherwise you are just a programmer, technician, electrician or whatever, these software programmers have devalued the word Engineer so much that every high school graduate with 6 months software course is now calling himself an engineer, you need a mindset and critical thinking to be an engineer which is not easy to come by unless you are trained for that. I guess we need a regulation just like you cannot be called a doctor unless you have a professional medical degree, same should be the case for engineers too
I am baffled by the argument on this thread. Are you seriously arguing that math, physics, chemistry, and science in general is a waste of resources and engineers are not needed. Let me ask you this, can a technician design and build the laptop or the smart phone you are currently using to surf the web and type this nonsense? Can a technician design and build the processor, memory, display, or the PC board?
I am an electrical engineer with an advanced degree and I "design" advanced hardware needed for production. I can also code and use simulation software, however, I would never call myself a programmer. If I ask any electronic technician when and why would you put a capacitor in series with a resistor on the feedback loop of an op-amp, and what are the optimum values, do you think I would get an answer! If I ask a technician why and how we design a 50 Ohm trace on a PCB, do you think you would get a meaningful answer?
I work with technicians and some of them have these insecurities, one of the older technicians thought he knows it all, took an expensive measuring instrument, damaged it by applying to much power and ended up costing the company tens of thousands of dollars to fix just to get an ego boost.
Let's get real here, without engineers with advanced degrees you wouldn't have the technology you are using today, no satellites, no GPS, no computers, no decent cars, no safe roads and bridges, no MRI machines, etc.
Go crawl back under a rock!
Question for all those knowledgeable about software development. What percentage of the software developers actually have a four year college education. This is the criteria I use to define being educated. Anything less than that is sub-par. And yes, I am arrogant and a damn good real engineer.
This argument is only possible because software engineers, unlike "real" engineers, aren't required to be certified.
Civil engineers require certification, because we don't want our bridges to fall down. If they did not have formal training, they'd never pass the certification exams.
Software engineers don't require certification -- even though there's lots of code in our automobiles and airplanes, so lives are similarly at risk. The regulators have just never got around to regulating us.
Wanna know what a world-class software engineer thinks of Twitter? Grady Booch has some frank opinions:
https://twitter.com/Grady_Booch
As we all know it's the technicians who do the real work and keep the ship running while Engineers pretend to know something because they have a fancy piece of paper
We know what you do: put numbers and drawings in an app made by software engineers and then ask the software for answer. That's all you. That's what an accountant does these days. Doctors these days essentially ask computers for an answer. I guarantee you cannot so a simple addition problem without a computer, let alone "advanced math." It'll come to the point where anyone in high school can use a computer program to the "advanced math, physics, etc." to do what you do. Remember when Obama told a factory worker that the jobs aren't coming back and you'll need to learn how use a computer? That's what you do, and eventually you will be replaced.
There is a need for both. You can be a coder with a two-year degree. Heck, when companies staff up during a financial bo-m, like they just did, you can be a coder with a high-school degree.
You can also build bridges with those degrees. But you would be a bridge-builder only in the sense of being a carpenter or welder. You cannot be the Civil Engineer, the person who understands and leads construction, without formal training.
Twitter has an old codebase, in need of maintenance, and most of the people who understood it have just left. To take charge of that codebase, you don't hire a coder. You hire a software engineer with formal training.
I do both. Write code and conventional engineering. They both have value. Too much coding will drive you nuts the same way excessive gaming will. They both have value. This is like the great native American tribes battling with each other while the pale face steals their land. Can't we all get along?
So using machine learning, to cut a 6 inch thick piece of metal isn’t engineering.
Using machine learning to fill a 3 inch gap isn’t engineering…. Most engineers that can’t write code including chemical are about as good as anyone who can read directions on the back of a cereal box. Difference is you went into debt for your skills, I was born with a wrinkle brain. You don’t have a PHD so sit down.
I call myself an auto-mater. Automating basic engineers out of jobs.
@OP Is using smooth brain thinking. Engineers design and build things to be used by others, plain and simple.
Useing code to build software is no different of a convent than using physics to design a machine.
As an experienced TRUE ENGINEER running a steam locomotive, with many years apprenticeship as a steam fitter, depot mechanic, and fireman shoveling coal, I find it offensive that nerds with all your mere book learning, advanced math, and other useless stuff are being called engineers. They are not engineers, they are eggheads. This is a mislabel and offensive to us REAL engineers. Oh, and I also know Morse Code.