> I hate the term "software engineer", because we're not engineers.
I don't buy that. We're building software in a time before we have a universally accepted engineering doctrine for software, but you can hope that somebody calling themselves a "software engineer" is going to be using some kind of engineering-like doctrine.
Very, very few of us follow any sort of engineering-like practices. "Engineer" has real and meaningful connotations that almost no software developers follow or can follow.
Engineers have certifications and legal consequences to turning out a complete turd. If a PE signs off on something that catastrophically breaks, they can be legally culpable. With very rare exceptions, "software engineers" just file something in Bugzilla.
I don't buy that. We're building software in a time before we have a universally accepted engineering doctrine for software, but you can hope that somebody calling themselves a "software engineer" is going to be using some kind of engineering-like doctrine.
A good presentation about the future of software engineering: http://confreaks.com/videos/550-scotlandruby2011-real-softwa...