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Comment by Comevius | Hacker News Reader

I agree with the regulators, we should start requiring an engineering license, holding software developers accountable for their work. Standards ought to matter for software just as much as it does for buildings and bridges. Potentially billions can end up depending on a particular software whose safety and privacy can be at risk if the software is unreliable.

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If you hold software devs to the same standard, require them to sign off on projects and be criminally liable if it collapses later, you're going to create shortage of such engineers, and would also give them immense power. They'd be more powerful than lawyers and politicians probably, given how much money is tied to software.

>If you hold software devs to the same standard, require them to sign off on projects and be criminally liable if it collapses later, you're going to create shortage of such engineers, and would also give them immense power. They'd be more powerful than lawyers and politicians probably, given how much money is tied to software.

I don't think anyone's arguing for the certification of every software developer. Just those who wish to become a professional engineer. A software engineer will then work on such projects and may even be the one to sign-off on it. They will be held to a higher account and be expected to produce robust, safe systems. All the things that come along with being a professional engineer. And just as it is in other fields, the majority of those employed are not engineers and will work on other projects. We're not talking about anything novel here; the approach would be similar to that of any other professional engineer.

Think about "CPA". Not every accountant needs to be a CPA. But somebody in a company offering accounting services should be. Similarly for "Certified Software Engineer". You can do software without being certified, but it helps to get more clients if you have some kind of accreditation.

But currently there is no organization offering such an accreditation. Why? Because no organization can credibly claim they can certify who is a "Certified Software Engineer". Maybe somebody should. Maybe the universities should get together and devise such a program and accreditation. It is still a new field.

This seems reasonable for something like software for cars or civil projects. Your typical fart app can't really afford to make strong guarantees.

>This seems reasonable for something like software for cars or civil projects. Your typical fart app can't really afford to make strong guarantees.

Indeed. Those interested in such a career would have something to pursue and, at completion, may refer to themself as engineer. For the rest of us we have other job titles to describe what we do (software developer, code monkey, etc.).

You are asking for something current software technology can't guarantee. That is why you can pay millions of dollars in licenses to ANY software company, and when you install their software, ( excluding software like airplanes and other where lives depend on it...) the first thing the license says is: NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF ANY KIND...

The issue is that software is so layered, so you cannot guarantee much if the foundations are not solid. It's like as if a building is being built by different companies, most of them having to create a generic enough solution for other companies to be able to build just about anything on. That creates a tremendous amount of complexity.

But that's true for many other manufactured items as well, and the manufacturer of the product that ends up in the hand of the customer ends up assuming most of the responsibility, since they had the opportunity to test the product fully assembled.

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