It undermines a long tradition of designing and building infrastructure in the public interest.

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.

  • drd@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
    184·
    6 days ago

    I mean you can’t go to the store purchase a stethoscope and call yourself a doctor. Similarly, programmers do not require any sort of certifications or are heavily regulated unlike engineers. It’s an interesting argument for sure.

    • Windex007@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      6 days ago

      It depends on the jurisdiction.

      In Alberta, Canada, for example, employers will hire programmers from two distinct pools of educational streams: Computer Scientists and Software Engineers.

      CS programs are governed by the faculties of science, software engineers by the schools of engineering.

      The software engineers take the same oaths or whatever and belong to the same organization as the other engineers (in Alberta, APEGA) and are subject the same organizational requirements to be able to describe themselves as engineers. They can have the designation revoked the same way a civil engineer could.

      Practically speaking, as someone who works with both, I don’t see a meaningful difference in the actual work produced by grads of either stream. But at least in my jurisdiction the types of arguments being made don’t really hold because it is a regulated professional designation.

    • jonathan@lemmy.zipEnglish
      61·
      6 days ago

      The protected title for Medical Doctors is Doctor of Medicine. I can get a PHd in Software Engineering and call myself Doctor.

      • enkers@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        12·
        6 days ago

        You can, but if some cries out “Help I need a doctor!”, please don’t volunteer yourself. ;)

        • Womble@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          6 days ago

          FWIW doctor comes from the latin for “I teach” and has been used by acedemics since the 12th centrury. Its usage meaning physician is a lot more recent.

        • sean@lemmy.wtfEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          If someone cried out “I need to engineer a web application and work with a whole group of people to bring it about” I happily would though because I’m an engineer even though I don’t have a degree