Definitely making software can be engineering, most of the time it is not, not because of the nature of software, but the characteristics of the industry and culture that surrounds it, and argument in this article is not convincing (15 not very random engineers is not that much to support the argument from "family resemblance").
Software is clearly different than "hardware", but it doesn't mean that other industries do not use experiment and iteration.
This is the talk on real software engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhdlBHHimeM
In the context of software vs other sub-disciplines, the big difference is in the cost of iterating and validating. A bridge has very high iteration cost (generally, it must be right first time) and validation is proven over decades. Software has very low iteration cost, so it makes much more sense to do that over lots of upfront design. Validation of software can also generally be implemented through software tools, since it's comparatively easy to simulate the running environment of the software.
Other disciplines like electronics live a little closer to a bridge, but it's still relatively cheap to iterate, so you tend to plan interim design iterations to prove out various aspects.
No, the big difference is that in the Engineering disciplines, engineers are responsible end-to-end for the consequences of their work. Incompetence or unethical engineers can and regularly do lose their ability to continue engineering.
It's very rare that software developers have any of the rigour or responsibilities of engineers, and it shows in the willingness of developers to write and deploy software which has real-world costs. If developers really were engineers, they would be responsible for those downstream costs.
That is by definition not engineering.
> Equally, there's plenty of examples of software where careful processes are in place to demonstrate exactly the responsibilities you discuss.
Software engineering of course exists, but 99%+ of software is not engineered.
I'm not sure the generally accepted definition of engineering makes any reference to taking responsibility: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/engineer...
This is the talk on real software engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhdlBHHimeM
People forget that software is used in those other disciplines. CFD, FEA, model-based design etc. help to verify ideas and design without building any physical prototype and burning money in the real lab.
You can do some strain and stress analysis on a virtual bridge to get a high degree of confidence that the real bridge will perform fine. Of course, then you need to validate it at all stages of development, and at the end perform final validation under weight.
The thing is that people building engines, cars, planes, sensors, PCBs and bridges actually do so, largely because they are required to do so. If you give them freedom to not do that, many of them will spare themselves such effort. And they understand the principles of things they are working on. No one requires any of that from someone that glued together few NPM packages with a huge JS front-end framework, and such person may not even know anything about how the HTTP works, how browser handles the DOM etc. It's like having a mechanical engineer that doesn't even understand basic principles of dynamics.
There are industries that deal with the software (i.e. controls design) that have much higher degree of quality assurance and more validation tools, including meaningful quantitative criteria, so it clearly is not a matter of software vs hardware.
By that standard, doctors and hair stylists are also engineers, as are some chimps and magpies. I don't think it's a useful definition, it's far too broad.
Way to general to be useful. By that definition the store clerk is an engineer (tool cash register, problem solved my lack of gummy bears), janitors swinging a mops, or automotive techs changing oil.
Engineering is applied science.
However many, probably half, that I work with, and most that I worked with overall for the last 25+ years (since after I dropped out) have an engineering degree. Especially the younger ones, since this century it has been more focus on getting a degree and fewer seems to drop out early to get a job like many of us did in my days.
So when American employers insist on giving me titles like "software engineer" I cringe. It's embarrassing really, since I am surrounded by so many that have a real engineering degree, and I don't. It's like if I dropped out of medical school and then people started calling me "doctor" even if I wasn't one, legally. It would be amazing if we could find a better word so that non-engineers like me are not confused with the legally real engineers.
As a aside, I find your example of doctor as amusing because it's overloaded with many considering the term a synonym of physician, and the confusion that can cause with other types of doctors.
And proper software developement definitely has engineering parts. Otherwise titles are just labels.