alt Hacker NewsI design and build trains.
If I ignored a safety issue that I discovered - not one I caused by design but even one I discovered in an existing design - because of a performance review my engineering licence would be revoked and I would be kicked out of the industry.
This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.
Replies
>my engineering licence would be revoked and I would be kicked out of the industry.
This isn't because you're a "real" engineer, it's because of regulation and industry licensing around specific engineering disciplines that didn't exist until the start of the 20th century. Railroad engineers in the 1800's didn't have the same set of regulations to follow, or the same liability for mistakes.
Software engineering could have similar regulation and licensing set up, though I think you'd find it to be an impossible uphill battle in today's world against the lobbying power of the big tech companies.
> This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.
Yup, most don't have the spine to stand up for their moral as they grew up creating low-stake toys. On top of that we have been unable to establish the rigour (proofs, automated-verification, proper design thinking beyond the next 2 quarters) and doing so is really hard and often doesn't have drawbacks comparable to losing speed against teams that just keep throwing stuff at the wall.
I think there is a fine line. YouTube is not critical software and no one’s life depends on the safety (putting mental health aside) of the code running. Some software engineers do however write code that is critical, but to your point, I don’t think they are ever considered liable.
I went through an acquisition as a Canadian software developer getting acquired by an American company. They wanted us to be called engineers like the rest of their SWEs but in Canada it’s a protected namespace. It’s illegal to call yourself an engineer without having the ring and the papers. Which personally I can appreciate.
Engineering and math follow logic - they model reality / self-consistency and always correct themselves because of the scientific method. However, computer science is a chase of what is the most popular at the moment. Those are decisions based on the crowd, not anything close to an objective opinion, and the wrong choices are compounded every day[0][1].
"The rat is always right." - B.F. Skinner.
When the rat presses a lever, don't blame the rat. This is super reductionist of course, but I always keep it in mind.
> because of a performance review my engineering licence would be revoked and I would be kicked out of the industry.
Does this happen because train companies just decided to care or because regulators got involved? I believe it was the later. Regulation is often derided here on HN but good regulation does improve things.
In the country where I live there are two university degrees: Computer Science (depends on Mathematics) and Information Engineering (depends on Engineering). I took the latter, where there is more maths (despite not depending from the Maths department), physics, electronic, automation. I now work with healthcare data: a highly regulated field. Can you please explain what is _not_ engineering, given this context?
You compared trains to YouTube videos, I cannot take _you_ seriously.
> This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.
Jumping to a pretty general conclusion there. Incentive packages like the parent described are not the norm.
yeah, and somebody mounting i.e. some sort of audio/video equipment might make a mistake of putting flammable wire through firewall, while a software engineer in a different field (i.e. embedded or network firewall) might get lawful action in case of a design flaw
Licenses and reprimands are not bulletproof as those are often portrayed: take 737MAX for example, or Ford Pinto, or bridges, which fail every day as it seems
the only good investigation on the matter I've seen is this one: https://www.hillelwayne.com/talks/crossover-project/
and it states that yes, software engineers are in fact engineers -- and some investigation of the same order of magnitude is needed to disprove it
The entire rail industry suffers from massive deferred maintenance issues that manifest as serious safety concerns. This shit happens in every industry: dieselgate, 737max, flint water crisis, PG&E camp fire, etc. Let's not pretend one engineering discipline is holier than thou -- especially when the consequences are derailments versus some leaked youtube videos.
The analogy doesn’t work.
Train safety issues kill people.
If a train crashes, people die. If Youtube crashes, no one dies.
How is this remotely related? This is not a safety issue.
I wish I could upvote you more. A-fucking-men. The regard this group has for itself is so adorable at times.
The issue is a bit more nuanced. Where I live, software engineering is regulated in the same way civil engineering is. The main difference is that you don't usually need an engineer to sign off for software projects, but I dont see a big difference between PE certified projects and those that are more "agile". And we aren't some sort of SWE quality haven either.
Generally speaking i agree that we need better control over titles and competence but youtube is still an incredibly massive engineering achievement as a platform, has been extremely reliable all things considered, and it's been mostly built by people without those certifications or regulations.
> This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.
I'm a programmer working in healthcare. If I ignore a safety issue anyone discovered, people die and we go to prison. Am I an engineer now?
Programming is is serious engineering because we take ourselves seriously.
Programming is not serious engineering because real engineers don't half ass everything. <- you are here
No wait, programming is serious engineering because the way they do things is shit too.
Source: Aerospace employmennt
> This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.
The civil engineer who builds a great suspension bridge probably looks down on the one who builds a bridge over a irrigation ditch in a rural county using a big metal pipe covered with dirt.
Much like you may look down on train builders who make the novelty trains for kids parks.
Software engineering happens to be useful everywhere and most stuff in life is low stakes and the economics do not exist to make it perfect.
However, in aerospace, banking, and other high stakes industries software engineering projects are met with the rigor that is called for.
Software should always be treated as the artisanal, crafts-person like work that it is. There is far more subjectivity and design/aesthetics (not relating to GUI, etc) in the design of software than most will admit.
There's more than one variable here, but nice try.
Don't blame programmers, blame the insane annual review system at IT corporations.
Introduce the same system at train engineering companies and you'll get the same result.
Well you're not wrong, saying this as a programmer. Incompetence is unfortunately the norm in our industry.
If we're going to gatekeep the word "engineer", you're not in the most defensible position as a train designer. If you want to go back to the original definition, engineers were soldiers specialized in siege warfare, which has nothing to do with designing trains. Alternately, "engineer" can be broad enough to include someone driving a train, which presumably required some understanding of how the locomotive worked but was more of what we'd call a skilled technician.
> This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.
The problem isn't the programmers ffs. In your industry, if your superior orders you (or creates the incentive) to hide bad stuff under the rug, you have the ability to push back, at least to some degree.
Programmers? We don't have that. Maybe the few of us who actually work on security critical stuff, but some generic AI BS? No chance. You're being treated as a cog.
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I remember hearing this perspective when I first started in the software industry, and I agreed with it for quite some time. But frankly, we’ve never been further from it.
Last year alone, 40 people died in Spain in a train derailment. In total, how many people have died over the last 100 years because of something a software engineer did?
> This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.
Seems to me like your comment is simply an example of prejudice.
You're just describing another standardized incentive structure that you're operating in, and using that as a basis to extrapolate that programmers of all kinds—whether they work on a video platform or on machinery that could cause catastrophe if it fails—are implicitly careless careerists who refuse responsibility by nature.