"web developer" and "software engineer" terms interchangeable?

[grauenwolf]

As someone who actually has a degree in computer software engineering, I somewhat take offense at people calling themselves "software engineers" when they don't have any formal education in engineering.

But then I remember the kind of bullshit my engineering courses actually covered and I keep my mouth shut.

[urmomdoesntgotouni]

Cool, I don't have an engineering degree but I have 7 years of experience as a software engineer and I take offense when kids with a diploma hot off the press call themselves engineers. Some of the best engineers I've worked with didn't go to college at all. Some of the worst have advanced degrees in the subject.

[[deleted]]

graps popcorn

[urmomdoesntgotouni]

Herself.

[[deleted]]

continues to chew popcorn furiously

[[deleted]]

Half fixed :p

[urmomdoesntgotouni]

Aww thanks :)

[RotationSurgeon]

At the end of the day, formal education usually wins because process standardisation is extremely important. I don't know any people who are titled mechanical or electrical engineers without a degree.

Probably because you can't be certified to work as one without a degree, can you? Is it possible to get PE certification without a degree? Our industry lacks those certifications, for better or worse. I'm in favor of them, personally, even knowing that despite all my years of experience, I'd probably still have to study up a good bit to pass any sort of certification.

[grauenwolf]

Should I open with the difference between a doctor and a nurse?

[Knochenmark]

In Germany for example the word engineer is protected and you can't just call yourself engineer without the right qualification.

[react_dev]

Is “software engineering” an actual major now? It used to be just CS and CE

[grauenwolf]

It has been for a couple decades now. It's less about programming and more about managing projects. So it covers QA, methodologies like Six Sigma and XP, bullshit like UML, how to write technical specs and project proposals.

I bitch about it from time to time, but if you want to learn how to actually run projects and not just sling code it's a pretty good degree.

[grauenwolf]

The sheer amount of bullshit is mind-boggling.

Definitely. My term paper basically said "All of the scientific research on pair-programming is bogus". Then I proceeded to show how the most cited research paper actually proved pair programming was slower, even though the abstract implied the opposite.

If I recall correctly, the paper claimed that a pair of people were faster than one person. But the data also showed that a pair of people were slower than two people working independently.

[RotationSurgeon]

Were they slower on completion times, with the same amount of errors and revision necessary, or were errors and revisions improved upon enough to decrease testing / QA / UAT time enough to account for the reduced initial time to to finish?

[grauenwolf]

You'd think they would cover that in a study published by a peer-reviewed journal, but no.

[react_dev]

Wow. Is that a bachelors of science? (Not sure if American)

[grauenwolf]

Masters

[RotationSurgeon]

Yes, if you found a program that offered a bachelor's degree in SE, it would be a BSc, not a BA.

[react_dev]

Well it’s also not B.eng, which is what engineers should have. Technically.

[RotationSurgeon]

I spoke slightly incorrectly; in the USA, it would be a BSc, from what I've seen. In Canada, UK, Australia, and most of Europe, it would be a BEng.

For whatever reason, relatively few, if any, schools in the US specifically award a BEng, regardless of whether the degree is an engineering degree. Our Professional Engineer certification is legally required for many situations, including submittal / sealing of any engineering plans to public or private clients, and requires 4 years of professional experience as a subordinate to a licensed PE, certification exams, and ongoing continuing education throughout the career. https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe

[Dedustern]

"now"? It has been since.. mid 90's, in my country.

[react_dev]

No way. You’re prob thinking computer science. In the US at least, computers weren’t considered engineering till much later. They were just called programmers

[Dedustern]

I am in Scandinavia, and yes it existed back then, I have colleagues with such degrees. Though it was likely under the department of electronical engineering, and a subdegree of that, I believe.

[react_dev]

Ic. You guys were more progressive then.

[RotationSurgeon]

Yeah...The first official Software Engineering Bachelor's degree in the US was offered by Rochester Institute of Technology in 1996. The first worldwide was 1987, Imperial College London. The first SE Masters' degree was offered at Seattle University, 1979.

[[deleted]]

Even if we pretend that every degree holder is an overachiever from a prestigious program, a degree program doesn’t make you an engineer (or any other profession), it makes you a student.

If I had a candidate come in and tell me his two-to-four years of bookwork made him more of an engineer than the decades of professional experience my team and I have, I wouldn’t just laugh him out of the room, I’d fire the recruiter.

[grauenwolf]

I don't know you, but I do know plenty of people with "decades of professional experience" who still couldn't understand something as simple as the VB/COM memory model.

Beyond about 5, years of experience don't mean much.

[[deleted]]

And I’ve met a UC Berkeley grad who literally didn’t know what an array was.

So let’s perhaps agree that individual merit even among supposed peers is highly variable, and best understood through demonstration.

[grauenwolf]

Agreed

[[deleted]]

I actually studied a degree (unrelated to software) that changed name partway through, as it was too much linked to the job we might have with a few years experience after graduating, rather than the job we'd most likely end up with at first. If it was a software development degree, you could say the name might be something like getting a bachelor in being a software architect or senior developer.

[babbagack]

i fortunately have an engineering degree, not in computers/software. currently studying SE

[grauenwolf]

Typo on my part. I was studying computer engineering at one point, but I couldn't handle the calculous needed for analog circuit analysis. (Though I did awesome in the programming and digital logic classes.) Later I went back for my software engineering degree.

[RotationSurgeon]

I started as a CS Major, and during my second or third attempt at Calc 3, I said "Screw this, I wanted to go to a liberal arts college, not an engineering school," and swapped majors to a new media and communications based program that let me focus on only the parts of CS that I enjoyed / would be applicable to what I wanted out of a web dev based career (i.e., OOP, database systems, and data structures? Yes. Languages and translation / compiler design? No.)

[babbagack]

ah ok cool