Comment by penskymaterial
15 hours ago
Little did she know, the term would be co-opted by guys changing the color of a button on a web site.
15 hours ago
Little did she know, the term would be co-opted by guys changing the color of a button on a web site.
And gate-kept by just as many. I wonder what she'd take more issue with. My understanding is she wanted to elevate people who work on software, not draw a line around it.
If I had the option I would prefer the term "engineer" be gatekept.
Terminology can help elevate something that's often overlooked, but if every programmer gets called a "software engineer" there's no way to distinguish the special stuff.
It is a protected title in some countries but not the UK (and I don’t think the US either?).
I believe in some European countries you’re not allowed to call yourself any kind of “Engineer” without being a member of a professional body?
So ironically if that was the case Margaret Hamilton would not have been allowed to coin the term
12 replies →
Post-AI, the debate feels academic at this point.
3 replies →
So are you okay with actual engineers having a problem with the term used in software since you support gatekeeping? Engineer is a term that was used far before software was a thing. So if you support gatekeeping, you should let engineering refer to "actual work" not "code" and find a new term that doesn't engulfs the "original meaning".
Or just accept terms change as society and technology does.
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And then other guys made frontend dev tooling so complicated that it does actually require a software engineer to change the color of a button.