[jfb]

I disagree. I don't find many similarities between what I do and what a "real engineer" does. I do not consider myself an engineer; I write software. Nowhere in the 18 years I've been doing this for money have I met anybody that could explain what software engineering really is. Without a definition, the term to me is meaningless.

[tjpick]

the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software.

That's what they'll teach you at engineering school. Not everyone who is writing software is engineering.