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It's closer to engineering than either art or working on an assembly line. Software tasks just aren't fungible in most companies, and neither are they open-ended interpretable works designed to please or strike fear into the human soul. The average codebase is pleasing to me in the way an engine block or an oil refinery is pleasing. Q_rsqrt is pleasing in the way a mathematical proof is pleasing.

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I’ve worked in engineering businesses, and SaaS scale ups and the “engineering” that gets done by SWEs had little to nothing in common with any of the engineering disciplines I’ve worked in apart from the E in the title.

Little comprehension about cost engineering, maintenance, safety, durability and resilience. Half-baked bodies of knowledge. CV driven development. Fads and critical production systems held together with spit, tape and hope. It’s like Aristotle’s Cave in our field.

And yet building software is still closer to engineering than it is to charcoal figure drawing or to driving a forklift at a door factory.

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