this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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Programmers aren’t necessarily engineers tho, software engineers are, but not all programmers are software engineers. Even then, lots of people are trained as SEs and then just end up programmers.
"Software engineers aren't real engineers because they don't work on physical engines."
-An absolute dumbass telling me this to my face years ago while literally designing a software solution for (hardware) engineers on a manufacturing line
Nah. Software engineers aren't real engineers because they aren't liable for their poor design decisions.
As a software engineer I'll never kill anyone with a bad practice or mistake. You right my G. You right.
Never say never. AI is generating code from your code.
Programmer just writes code.
Software engineer designs the system that is to be coded.
It’s like the difference between an architect and a construction worker.
Edit: or maybe structural engineer and construction worker would be better. Architect may be more like a UX designer.
Speaking of which, systems architect is something else a programmer can be.
My work says I'm a, "security architect II". I believe he physical world manifestation of that would be... the guy that plans where the security guards should stand? Actually, I'm "II" so I'm probably more like the guy who gets escalated to when the guys that do do that need help 🤷
Programming is just one part of the whole process of creating software. There's more than just writing code. There's also planning, design, architecture, testing, deployment, maintenance, etc. All that is engineering. Unsurprisingly, people with software engineering training tend to have a more complete idea as to what goes into it all.
Calling yourself "engineer" impresses more people and gets you higher wages.
Let’s say I’m a carpenter, and occasionally I open up a cad program and draw up a wrench or lathe chuck and have it cut out of sheet steel. Yes, I did some engineering but I’m not really an engineer.
Likewise let’s say I’m an artist. Maybe I write code now and then to program my automatic paint mixer or whatever.
Code to build something: engineer
Code to use something: programmer
To me, if you wrote/maintain/design a scaled system with uptime and latency requirements, that's a software engineer.
If you're laying out buttons and implementing business logic, you're a programmer. (This was me).
The title of Engineer is heavily protected in some countries. You'd get the title of Developer or Analyst or something along those lines.