this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2024
1 points (66.7% liked)

Technology

67921 readers
26 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
1
Programmers: Stop Calling Yourselves Engineers (www.theatlantic.com)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by drd@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I don't think gate keeping engineering is bullshit, software or otherwise. In fact I think it is one of the few eminently important things to gatekeep.

If computer systems have peoples lives depending on them, having accredited engineers that may be part of a chain of liability for their mistakes is a potentially life saving measure. It provides increased guarantee that someone will be held responsible, be it the firm, or in the case of bankruptcy, the individual engineer.

This provides a significant incentive to only sign off on work that meets all relevant safety criteria.

I'm not sure if that's how it works in software engineering, but it certainly should.