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I don't mean to trivialize the work that programmers do. (Okay, maybe the ones who just copy and paste from Stack Overflow all day.) I'm an electronics engineer, but I've spent most of my professional life programming. It's legitimate technical work. But not all technical work is engineering. Would you call a programmer a mathematician just because computer science is a branch of mathematics?

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People who write the software that controls a nuclear reactor are definitely applying engineering principles (If they're not, then the world has a problem). Does that make them engineers? I would argue it does.

The problem with the programming profession is that it's possible to get away with not applying good engineering principles. It's only in domains like the nuclear industry, or the military (fighter planes etc.) where we can really imagine the consequences of buggy software.

Software Engineer is a title that reminds of how we should be approaching the programming problem.

I agree, things like nuclear reactor controls are areas where actual software engineering is (or should be) applied.

> Okay, maybe the ones who just copy and paste from Stack Overflow all day.)

Aka the most junior of juniors? Let's not pretend that will actually produce a working code meeting any real requirements.

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