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My bleeding linguistic descriptivist heart breaks a little every time I see an argument devolve into squabbling about the meaning of the word "engineer". Like, we can totally debate the merits of applying or not applying those four rules to the practice of creating software, but do we really gain much by arguing about what label we use to represent them?

It's like how the word "literally" has come to be used as an intensifier, not strictly in the (ahem) literal sense of the word - and "objectively" is well on it's way down the same path. You can be angry about that, but it's not going to stop the continuing evolution in how the world uses those terms - and "engineering" as a term is exactly the same.

> 3-The person solving the problem has been credentialed as an engineer in both ethics and scientific rigour.

>4-Because he is credentialed, there is non-waivable liability for the engineer signing off on the solution if it fails.

Both of these are bullshit. The engineers that aren’t yet credentialed but do all of the work that the PE signs off on are still certainly engineering.

> 2-Safety, repeatability, understanding of the how and why of the solution are non-negotiable.

Safety critical systems would like a word.

Many engineers are not credentialed by any government body. IDK what the breakdown is, but the engineers who build rockets and design a lot of new electronic devices have none of this. And the world is better for it