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Comment by proc0 | Hacker News Reader

"Engineer" Origin: Middle English (denoting a designer and constructor of fortifications and weapons; formerly also as ingineer ): in early use from Old French engigneor.

Also shares same root as Engine I assume. Engineers are experts in system building or some kind, the earliest being weapons, then transportation, etc.

Software Engineer is 100% an engineering role IF you are making what could be called a kind of engine. Prime example is working on a game engine's source code, and design (i.e. Unreal, Unity...), or working on a custom operating system. I've seen many people try to downplay how much software has these "engine-like" properties, where you have to pay attention at the "moving parts" (runtime), and those people simply don't see the invisible machine that's doing the work.

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Much programming is more art or craft than engineering.

For example, what separates a mechanic from an engineer? They are often working on the same project, and appear to be doing the same thing. In my view, a mechanic follows rules of thumb, eyeballs a design, etc. An engineer applies math and derives design, or checks the design using math. A mechanic will say "this beam looks thick enough to hold the load", and engineer can do a calculation to select the correct thickness for the load.

For software, a programmer can tell you that quicksort is faster. An engineer can tell you why it is faster, and be able to calculate how much faster it is.

That's a pretty bad example because any good programmer will have at least a rough idea how to profile code in their environment.

Can you name any software that's "engineered"? I can't. All software is built by craftsman of varying degrees. Nobody sits down and engineers anything up front.

The original point "agile" was that code is an iterative craft, so everybody should get together and work toward incremental improvements and respond to change, rather than try to engineer the whole project upfront. In other words, the way software is "supposed" to be built in most places these days is explicitly the opposite of engineering.

* Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

* Working software over comprehensive documentation

* Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

* Responding to change over following a plan

Doesn't sound like "engineering" to me, and that's the process with the most adoption (even though it's bastardized now, that's still the idea that's being sold).

> Can you name any software that's "engineered"?

Most compilers. GPS and mapping systems. Basically, software whose core operation founded on well understood data structures and algorithms.

No doubt there is heuristic fiddling around the user interface and that's not engineering, but the core of plenty of software ought to be well engineered.

I'm interested. Could you elaborate on "most compilers", with a specific compiler, and how it is "engineered"?

Although much care and thought goes into compilers, and they are related to discrete mathematical models (though, more descriptive than prescriptive for hand-written recursive descent parsers; unlike the central PDEs in some engineering), there is much tweaking for efficiency and especially for helpful error messages. I would describe that as "crafted" (though "engineering" has some crafting too).

Even something like diff, based on longest common subsequence, is full of ad-hoc tweaks to give excellent performance on typical real-world input, much better than theoretical complexity. (I mean the specialization that is in addition to the general optimization in the implemementation of the algorithm.)

I suppose your concept of "core operation founded on well understood data structures and algorithms" is the best we can hope for.

CompCert is the most extreme example of course given it's fully verified and the strictness required entails a high level of attention to details. Almost every compiler will be based on graph or tree transforms; Haskell and Rust are both engineered around reduction to intermediate, lower-level languages.

I don't think the tweaks you mention necessarily negate the core engineering, unless the system is completely unusable without them or they define more of the behaviour than the core itself.

Edit: for an analogy, consider whether the ergonomics of where buttons are placed on the dashboard of a car suddenly negate the fact that the car is engineered. That seems silly right? Any number of performance or other tweaks can be made to a car and not negate its engineeried quality, until you start compromising the actual operation of the car itself, like swapping out wheels for a tank track, or something like that.

Thanks, I was thinking of more used languages, such as c, python, java, javascript (they'd have greater need of good engineering, wouldn't they?).

I don't know Haskell or Rust well enough to appreciate their compiler engineering (and haven't heard of CompCert). But I might have a look at their source - I have a long-term project about tree transforms ATM and hadn't thought of looking at what compilers do (even though I was aware of Knuth's attribute grammars).

Yeah, nah, I think your "core operation" is a reasonable definition, both as primary function, and as the basic design (despite crafted tweaks atop).

I agree with your argument, but can you predict performance of an algorithm from big O complexity? (I assume you mean)

Perhaps a few runs of data points could enable curve fitting as it converges.

I feel like the "physics" of software is immature, closer to math than to practice, than for engineering - or something like that.

So I'm also agreeing with the gist of the other replier, that software isn't yet mature enough for precise estimates. We still flounder on what's needed, and stumble around what kind of a thing to build.

Precise specification is the exception.

Or in a non-medieval context, an engineer is member of a professional association of engineers whose rights and responsibilities are legislated. And imo, anyone who calls themselves an engineer but isn't a member of a professional association of engineers is misrepresenting themselves.

That's like saying no one can be an artist because they're not a member of the official artist club. I'm sure the term engineer outdates any professional association.

Actually it's just being respectful. I'm not an engineer, but I work with a lot of engineers who actually have the qualifications to call themselves engineers, so if I call myself one, I'm essentially lying.

I am an Engineer, in that my degree is in engineering, and my job is in engineering.

I am not a Professional Engineer, in that I have not taken the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, passed, worked for at least 4 years under a Professional Engineer, and then taken the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam. So I can't put EIT or PE after my name, stamp projects which require it, or operate as a PE in any state.

I misspoke then. I would call you an engineer without your being a member of a professional association. I guess in my mind the degree is enough. I'll never have PEng on my business card, but you at least have the potential.

Highly depends of your region. In France being an "engineer" means having an official Engineering Degree, or simply occupying an engineering position (the degree is not strictly necessary, you can have another one or even none at all).

The common ground of engineers throughout the world is more simply that they practice engineering... (and yes, this has a meaning -- managing requirements and developing in accordance to business values and economics comes to mind -- and yes, this can be applied to SE, and this is even quite "simple" to apply, at least this is not more difficult than for any other field)

I don't really see why some people pretend all the time that SE is different or young and it is not proper engineering. I never read a convincing argument about why it should be so. Of course they are differences but they also are differences between other fields.

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