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Comment by closewith | Hacker News Reader

It’s neither snobbery nor silly. Do you slavishly adhere to the etymological definitions of all the terms that you use?

If so, the OP is still not an engineer unless he’s writing software for weapons.

In the end, anyone lying to their client about the standards their software adheres to is not undertaking engineering.

Yeah sorry, it's silly. Use the term "licensed engineer" or something. Don't come up with new definitions for words and then get offended when people point out that you're being silly.

> Don't come up with new definitions for words and then get offended when people point out that you're being silly.

I think some introspection may be required here.

I think you don't understand what you just quoted. But yes, you should introspect about why you're being silly about trying to redefine a word and then getting offended over it.

In North America at least, the term is Professional Engineer. PEs are generally licensed in a way similar to doctors and lawyers. At one point there was a push to professionalize software engineers, but it never got very far.

Feel free to call yourself a software engineer (or even a software doctor). The titles aren’t controlled and as a result don’t really mean anything.

I believe that in Canada, and certainly in Alberta, the titles are very much controlled. The regulatory group APEGA has a Professional Engineer designation for software engineers as well

Context matters. Even in Alberta, the term “software engineer” doesn’t mean anything. Last time I looked into this, Quebec was trying the hardest to control usage and they actually took Microsoft to court for their MCSE title.

Another example: the University of Alberta has a software engineering program.

https://www.ualberta.ca/computing-science/research/research-...

Search on Canadian job sites and you will find hundreds of software engineering jobs across Canada (including Alberta).

Other examples of non-PE engineers include stationary engineer (people who operate boilers) and locomotive engineer (people who operate trains). They may have their own regulations, but it is entirely distinct from Professional Engineers.

One of the few here! Hardly anyone else though.

> the titles aren't controlled

It's a bit complicated. In Oregon, for example, someone was fined $500 in 2015 for referring to themselves an engineer; although they had an engineering degree, they were not a licensed professional engineer. The state law was invalidated in 2018.

https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...

Why?

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