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Comment by noir_lord | Hacker News Reader

Nomenclature matters, I hate the term "coder" what was wrong with programmer or software engineer?.

What you call yourself has an impact on how people assess your skills (I know it shouldn't matter but it does).

If someone is called a software engineer that brings to mind a conscientious programmer who writes clear maintainable code that meets the spec however when someone is called a coder I visualise someone who vomits PHP into an editor intermingled with HTML and CSS in a form of code injection bingo.

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Calling yourself a software engineer implies an software engineering degree. Otherwise you would be a liar.

I bet not many people have the guts to call themselves mechanical engineers just because they know how to fix the break pump of a car, for example.

In that vein, software engineer in my mind implies that you have completed a professional practice exam of some sort, depending on your jurisdiction's requirements, which may include the requirement of completing a software engineering degree, and are willing to take on the legal consequences of any faulty software that you sign off on.

Just having a software engineering degree alone should not really make you an engineer, in this respect, any more than someone who has studied software development practices through other means.

Not necessarily true, even in more formal engineering disciplines it is often possible to become an engineer (as recognised by professional bodies) without a degree.

In software engineering this is even more blurry, for example my school offered both computer science as software engineering degrees. However in practise the only difference was that the software engineering track had a mandatory module on UML.

We have pretty much the same thing here at school, with a few differences. I got to computer engineering, which has math, physics, some chemistry (for unknown reasons) and a few other things. While the computer science/informatics course has just discrete math and no calculus, no physics and no chemistry. They have more IT classes.

At least here in Norway 'Engineer' is not a protected title (but Civil Engineer is), so anyone could just call themselves an engineer.

But unless you have tons of experience and can prove you know the required things then I doubt you will be getting a job as a Construction Engineer or something like that without a degree.

In IT I doubt anyone cares as long as you prove yourself capable.

This depends a great deal on jurisdiction, in the UK there are many jobs with titles of "X engineer" which would more accurately be described as "X technician" or "X operator".

In places which more rigorously enforce titles it is usually down to a professional body to set requirements, though even then these tend to not mandate a degree (though that makes the path smoother). For example the IEEE requires either an IEEE accredited degree or 6 years of proven work experience in a relevant field to achieve member status.

In the UK we have a institution for IT professionals (The British Computer Society) though as far as I can tell nobody really cares much about it.

Lots of the people I've worked with that I've respected have been members of the IEEE they seem to have quite a few programmers and all the ones I've met have been excellent.

Even met one of these once http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certified_Software_Development_... he was a scarily good software engineer.

Even SE degrees are a little flaky. My CS program compared to the SE program was one difference in compulsory modules. McMaster seems to be going the right way with their program, which isn't focused on CS like most others are [1].

[1] : http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/cas/0template1.php?903

There's also the 'engineer' baggage, in that engineers probably don't think software engineering is engineering.

but you can also be an expert in your fields, even without a a degree.

Think about online marketing practices like SEO. There is no university which is really teaching you how search engines work and you can influence them. You can only read as much as you can and learn on your own experiences.

And even if you have a degree and call yourself a software engineer, it does not imply that you are a one, does it?

I'm employed as a software engineer, but I have a mechanical engineering degree.. What should I call myself?

Q - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_%28James_Bond%29

They might if they design mechanical engines, irrespective of if they have a degree.

I always have to smile when someone calls themselves a "coder" (especially when they smugly call themselves a "real coder"). It wasn't that long ago, in the era of big iron, that coder meant something else entirely. Programmers would write programs on paper. It was then the job of the coder to type the programs on the punch-card stations. Coders were guys who could be trusted not to screw up the syntax but not to write their own code. If you wanted to insult a programmer, all you had to do was to call them a "coder".

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