Comments on: Programming vs. Engineering http://www.lykaon.com/2007/10/04/programming-vs-engineering/ We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes... Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:45:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: sml2046 http://www.lykaon.com/2007/10/04/programming-vs-engineering/comment-page-1/#comment-1269 sml2046 Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:00:40 +0000 http://blog.lykaon.com/?p=274#comment-1269 To make things even more complicated, what about the degree of Computer Engineering. How is that different from Computer Science? Does it matter? I took 4 years of programming in college and was a "software engineer" for Exxonmobil for almost three years, but these days I couldn't program my way out of a paper bag. I guess its just as well, the only engineer I really wanted to be growing up was the locomotive kind. /train "woo woo chugga chugga chugga woo woo!" To make things even more complicated, what about the degree of Computer Engineering. How is that different from Computer Science? Does it matter? I took 4 years of programming in college and was a “software engineer” for Exxonmobil for almost three years, but these days I couldn’t program my way out of a paper bag. I guess its just as well, the only engineer I really wanted to be growing up was the locomotive kind. /train “woo woo chugga chugga chugga woo woo!”

]]> By: akaemi http://www.lykaon.com/2007/10/04/programming-vs-engineering/comment-page-1/#comment-1265 akaemi Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:07:29 +0000 http://blog.lykaon.com/?p=274#comment-1265 The whole computer 'field' of jobs is sort of amorphous and unregulated. You have the IT side of things - sys admins, computer support - and you have the software-creation side of things - software engineers, developers, etc. But it's all sort of lumped together - even though a developer is, in most cases, completely unqualified to take on a sys admin role, and vice versa. In all this lump of computer-ness, you have people that went through 6 months of on the job training, people that went to 8 years of school (PhD in CS), and everything in between. There is no licensing, just your word that you are capable of everything you claim to be capable of. And it would be a difficult thing to license - if I was a licensed "web developer" 5 years ago, that wouldn't be very impressive by today's standards. With such a quickly evolving field, who would be in charge of updating licensing standards? It's just not feasible. So - for those of you not in computer fields - please don't ask me to fix your computer. I write software for a living. I'm really not into diagnosing and replacing failed hard drives ... The whole computer ‘field’ of jobs is sort of amorphous and unregulated. You have the IT side of things – sys admins, computer support – and you have the software-creation side of things – software engineers, developers, etc. But it’s all sort of lumped together – even though a developer is, in most cases, completely unqualified to take on a sys admin role, and vice versa.

In all this lump of computer-ness, you have people that went through 6 months of on the job training, people that went to 8 years of school (PhD in CS), and everything in between.

There is no licensing, just your word that you are capable of everything you claim to be capable of. And it would be a difficult thing to license – if I was a licensed “web developer” 5 years ago, that wouldn’t be very impressive by today’s standards. With such a quickly evolving field, who would be in charge of updating licensing standards? It’s just not feasible.

So – for those of you not in computer fields – please don’t ask me to fix your computer. I write software for a living. I’m really not into diagnosing and replacing failed hard drives …

]]>