The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis (1995)
duke.edu
duke.edu
I was waiting for this line throughout the first 2/3rds of the story. The story began almost framing LeMessurier as criminally incompetent, failing on a flourish and retiring to his private island to consider it, but he not only acted with incredible responsibility but discovered flaws in NYC's building test codes and typical practices concerning joint construction while building an effective response team to fix it.
I suppose it makes the whole thing more dramatically structured to insinuate a little bit of character transformation and reveal, but that guy deserves the kind of acclaim that was reserved until the last few paragraphs.
Engineer means something. It means, "The person who signs off on the design and who is liable if the design sucks." If you're not legally liable for your software, you shouldn't be called a software engineer.
In fact in some states misusing the word engineer is against the law. For instance see http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/eng_req.htm where it says that using the word engineer in your title is against the law if you are not, in fact, an engineer.
I've met many Electrical Engineers over the years. Some of them are licensed PEs, many are not. The vast majority of the EE projects do not involve a risk to human life and therefore are not required to use PEs. I've never noticed any angst on one side or the other over the use of the word "Engineer" to describe EEs who don't have their PE.
I also have met computer programmers who do write software that involves a risk to human life. They are every bit as meretricious and dedicated to building defect-free systems as engineers in any other discipline.
Arguably, there's no pressure to enact a licensing regime because there have been so few incidents in which software has actually hurt people. That's a testament to the professionalism of the computer engineers who write life-critical systems.
What an odd thing to say. Reported by whom (besides you)?
Tinkers, blacksmiths and mechanics have been around for a while. Are you including them in your definition of engineer? (James Watt was a mechanic.)
I think you may have meant "meticulous."
Meretricious: 1. alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry. 2. based on pretense, deception, or insincerity. 3. pertaining to or characteristic of a prostitute. [1]
You ought to hear AIA members go on and on and on about software architects, information architects, etc.
A big, career threatening problem occurred, but instead of taking the easy way out, the architect did the hard, right thing and it all worked out.
We all have these moments when we have to choose between cowardice and courage. This is a good example to keep in mind.
It seems to me, that everybody involved including the Citicorp executives demonstrated huge amounts of character and integrity which says a lot about the corporate culture of 1978. I don't imagine the current top ranks at Citicorp would be so exemplary in their behaviour.
If any bank tried to claim today that they're so incredibly, overbearingly cautious, they'd mocked as being obviously full of shit.
http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.duke.edu%2F... [viewtext.org]
Sometimes when I'm nostalgic, vain, or super-bored I'll go back and read code that I've written. Sometimes I find something that I've forgotten and once in a while I'll find bugs. Having that curiosity (or is it just excessive pride?) is a good thing in my opinion.