Hacker News Reader

Comment by hospitalJail | Hacker News Reader

I was a real engineer for a decade before switching to programming.

I cannot use the word software engineer, since its nothing like real engineering.

Real engineering was def harder, more math intense, and the stakes were sooo much higher. While many software problems can cause you to lose money, engineering problems can cause you to lose time. Yes it sucks your CAD designer had everything on a 0.05 degree angle and it costs 1M to redo the tool, but it also costs 16 weeks to redo the tool. We'd even offer to pay absurd money, prevent future business, etc... to get the tool done in 8 weeks, but its impossible to get it done faster. Now everything in the company is 8 weeks behind schedule.

Anyway, real engineering was harder, but programming pays soooo much more money. Its a demand thing, not a difficulty thing.

View on HN

> While many software problems can cause you to lose money, engineering problems can cause you to lose time.

I'm guessing you were trying to say something else here. I literally cannot think of a single software engineering problem I've ever encountered that didn't cost time. By your definition, then, software engineering is engineering. Your claim and your definitions are at odds with one-another.

Also, you don't directly claim it, but you seem to imply, that software engineering can't have real-world consequences... or something? As another reply points out, sometimes software is in the critical path for things like rockets and airplanes, where mistakes cost lives.

And some people making software for less life-altering systems take their craft just as seriously. Some people think that losing $10M every single second while their software is failing is a big deal.

Are you claiming people who write HFT code, ad arbitrage code, code that powers the front page of Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are just cowboying it through the day, doing nothing special?

Overall I just find this comment very confused. Maybe you could put some thought into what you're trying to say, and say it better?

So if you have your PE license and are writing software that controls a commercial airplane system or a spacex rocket, you are not an engineer doing software engineering?

Ahh I forgot to put my usual caveat.

Assembly and safety critical C can be considered software engineering.

Anything with abstraction, no.

I agree that far too many people call themselves software engineers when they really aren't.

But I just mean to say that software engineering itself is definitely still a real thing and there are many people out there that can and should call themselves software engineers.

From Wikipedia: "A software engineer is a person who applies the engineering design process to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software."

"The engineering design process, also known as the engineering method, is a common series of steps that engineers use in creating functional products and processes. The process is highly iterative - parts of the process often need to be repeated many times before another can be entered - though the part(s) that get iterated and the number of such cycles in any given project may vary.

It is a decision making process (often iterative) in which the basic sciences, mathematics, and engineering sciences are applied to convert resources optimally to meet a stated objective. Among the fundamental elements of the design process are the establishment of objectives and criteria, synthesis, analysis, construction, testing and evaluation.[1]"

It is not dependent on the problem domain, rather on how the work is performed.

“Real engineer,” is such an insufferable way to make your point. I guess only civic engineering is “real.” If you don’t like the term software engineer you’d be real mad if you found out about sound stage engineers. Being an engineer isn’t about engineering solutions to business problems; nope it’s having to deal with bureaucratic hurdles that slow you down that makes one an engineer.

it's just -soft- engineering bro, get over it.

It's always been a demand thing, not a difficulty thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com