Reminds me of the Therac-25 incident..
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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Software Gore
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This, right here, is why "professional" software "engineers" should be licensed.
Former healthcare to software engineer working on a master's here. My colleagues who were licensed back in healthcare weren't all of the same quality. They all made mistakes at one point or another, some pretty bad some minor. There's no difference though, minor could just as well become major.
The way they get around it in healthcare is by throwing more people at the problem. You have a physician who is good at pointing in the general direction of the problem and a solution, then you have all the auxiliary staff who will narrow down on the solution based on their field. But at any single point all of them could fuck up, or one of them could.
Now that I'm a software engineer and I've written enough code to do stuff. I can confidently say that licensing will not solve this problem. Especially if there aren't enough people involved. Which is probably what was missed in the beginning.
Anyway long rant over.
Licensing isn't about magically ensuring that the practitioner won't make mistakes; it's about holding the practitioner accountable for his mistakes, which in theory gives him more incentive to be more careful -- or to change his practice's workflows and systems so as to be better able to detect and correct mistakes.
In fact, I would argue that the "throwing more people at the problem" phenomenon in healthcare is an example of that very thing. Do you think they'd keep staffing levels equally high without licensing? 'Cause I sure don't.
So, what you say is let's hold the lowest level accountable, the person who may don't have any power over the fcked up decisions about the amount of developers, presence of QA, and timeline.
No, licensing will not make "accountable" people magically incentivised enough to make no mistakes
A licensed Professional Engineer is exactly the opposite of the lowest level person. In fact, that's part of the point: giving the experts the power to say "no" to unsafe/unethical management.
Ok, stated that way it makes more sense, thanks for the explanation
Don't think that kind of thing is going to happen, though
Never gonna happen as long as the demand is so much higher than the supply.
Perhaps it should be a requirement for certain things though, like the medical area.
But I deserve to be paid just as much for my vast technological knowledge even if I didn't get a bunch of speech and liberal art credits from a college in the middle of nowhere. Bootcamps are the industry standard! /SARCASM, GO GET A REAL DEGREE OR WORK IN FAST FOOD
You don't have to have a college degree to become a licensed P.E.; it just takes more years working under the supervision of one. (I think it's something like your options are a bachelor's degree + 4 years P.E. supervised experience or 8 years P.E. supervised experience alone.)
First of all, there is little to no requirement to be NCEES FE/PE or even EIT certified to work as an engineer in the USA, unfortunately. But if there was, then you would still have to fill out an application documenting your experience, which in the vast majority of cases would be an Engineering course from somewhere other than an ABET / EAC accredited institution rather than simply having no education. Maybe in Canada but I've got no idea how things work over there aside from they have stricter regulations on the title.
Anybody in the USA can call themselves an engineer, and most working programmers do.
In software "engineering," sure. In e.g. civil engineering, on the other hand, pretty much everybody's either gonna be licensed or on the path to it.
I guess the regulators don't consider software to count as real engineering, LOL!
I've never worked as a Civil Engineer so I can't really speak for it, but I cannot name any states that require NCEES certification and it certainly isn't federal.
You conspicuously left out local jurisdictions, and guess what: that's where the requirements kick in (except maybe for trivial stuff, the city or county is going to want plans to have a P.E.'s stamp on them before they'll issue a building permit).
Also, NCEES certification and professional licensure isn't the same thing, so your claim was kind of a red herring in two ways. Licenses are issued by the state.
So what you're saying is that each city, county, or district decides on their own whether or not they hire an engineer who was certified by NCEES via PE/FE/EIT licensure? I decided to add a whole bunch of words to make it less confusing this time. Because states have constitutions and legislature in the USA, but township's policies can change by the acting leader. To me that's exactly the point I've been trying to make, is that the USA severely lacks any central system or regulation on who qualifies as an engineer.
LOL, you're just quibbling to be argumentative. Are you going to try to make an argument that having 100% of local jurisdictions βοΈ"decide"βοΈ βοΈ"on their own"βοΈ to conform to nationwide standards of practice instead of having a "central system [of] regulation" makes any meaningful, practical difference, or are we done here?
Coming back to this the next day I've realised you're shifting the goalpost here, my problem is that anybody anywhere can call themselves an engineer. I could care less if they cannot get a job as a civil engineer in 98% of towns. That doesn't solve my problem. Also, if you really believe that there will never be a case of some idiot hiring a non-engineer despite there being no regulation, then you have much higher faith in humanity than I do.
Let me tell you some shocking news: Most of the majors in Computer Science and Engineering (in the university I took it, one of the most prestigious in my country) don't know shit about software engineering. They know only how to burp out the same leetcode style programs they were taught and that's it. I'd trust a guy that managed to learn software engineering on it's own through years of FAFO than (most) university majors.
Seethe more
They don't look like the one who is getting overly-emotional here.
Could have fooled me, I posted a funny and they told me their life's story.
That was supposed to be funny? Are you sure?
At least 14 people agreed, I think if the sub weren't filled with "SoFTwArE eNgINEerS" instead of actual Software Engineers then there wouldn't be as many if any at all downvotes.
One of those was you, so 13 actual opinions that matter.
Compared to the 44 that didn't find it funny at all.
So you admit that it was funny?
I'm not sure 'people agree with me' and 'they think I'm funny' mean the same thing.
So then 13 people upvote a comment that contains nothing except for a long winded joke that they don't think is funny, you have a wonderful mind and I hope you have a fantastic day.
I apologize. Clearly, you are the world's new George Carlin. I'm just unable to understand a wit like yours. But I am glad that you put that you were being sarcastic in all caps. Jokes are always funnier if you explain that they're jokes, so that's probably why those 13 people thought it was so hilarious.
It literally says in in the comment in full capital letters at the end /SARCASM
Which denotes the end of the SARCASM of the comment. I'm sorry you missed that. I didn't have to explain that it was a joke, I'm doing that now because I'm nice, I had to banter with you about the objective reality that people laughed with me about it.
Yes, I know, as I said, I'm really glad you put 'SARCASM' in all caps like that at the end so everyone would know it was a joke because that's what makes jokes funny.
In fact, it would have been even funnier if you had started it with "THIS IS A FUNNY THING I WILL TYPE NEXT:"
You should probably edit your post and add that in for maximum humor. Think how many upvotes you would get to brag about then!
I unfortunately cannot say in any confidence that you're the next Eddie Murphy.
Well that's good, because I certainly haven't said anything funny. I mean, if I did, I would have notified you in all caps.
Lmao you can just ignore statements that you yourself have made, then?
When you get near a sentence that makes sense, let me know.
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