[rhizome]

Start with the HUGE failure rate in software development. There is no provable reliability and/or costing, nor is there any form of standardization beyond RFCs and "best practices." One might even doubt that it's even possible for there to be standards like you see in capital-E Engineering due to the unique and complex nature of general computing systems.

To sum up, software development requires too much trust, way more than would be acceptible in an aircraft carrier or airplane or nuclear bomb. Or refrigerator.

[tra3]

What about Engineering (or, construction, say) being hundreds of years old vs software development only 50?

Not arguing with your main point, but curious to hear your thoughts.

[repolfx]

Software engineering is clearly engineering. The main difference is simply that in the software world, engineers often report directly to people who aren't engineers. This basically never happens in other fields - e.g. all buildings, tunnels, railways etc are built by dedicated engineering firms founded and run by more engineers. The exception in software is of course the tech industry, which routinely pulls off engineering marvels.

Projects usually go wrong, or are "late" (relative to estimates engineers didn't want to give in the first place), when they're being closely controlled by people who are not engineers. The recent article on Berlin's new airport being a case in point, where the politicians tried to double its size after it started being constructed and the entire project collapsed in a heap.

Now imagine that happening all the time, every day. That's the enterprise software world.