2mo ago

Programmers: Stop Calling Yourselves Engineers

www.theatlantic.com Programmers: Stop Calling Yourselves Engineers

It undermines a long tradition of designing and building infrastructure in the public interest.

Old, but fun read that argues that today's programmers are not like typical Engineers and shouldn't really call themselves that as Engineering requires certification, is subject to government regulation, bear a burden to the public, etc.

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1y ago

Programmers should not call themselves engineers (2015)

www.theatlantic.com /technology/archive/2015/11/programmers-should-not-call-themselves-engineers/414271/

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77 comments

In Germany engineer is a regulated term. Computer scientists wanting to call themselves engineer or software engineer need to complete certain higher education programs. A B.Sc. program in CS is enough for example.
- Same for the Netherlands.
  
  Yep, but only the Dutch word is protected so we just use English titles everywhere
  
  Same in France. Anyone can call themselves a "software engineer". But the title of "engineer" (ingénieur) is specific for people who graduated from a school allowed to deliver engineering degrees.
  
  In Dutch it’s also ingenieur, I wonder where we got that from
  
  It comes from the Latin word ingenium.
  
  Really? I thought Ir. is only with a masters
  
  That is correct. There is both and Ing and Ir title that are Engineer. Ir for masters and Ing for higher education.
  See Titels voeren.
- The people doing software engineering without such a degree in the US are definitely in the minority, so there's not much point to the hand-wringing generally speaking.

77 comments