[austincheney]

While the difference in source material can be a wide gap as you described the bigger difference that people commonly point at is ethics.

As a lawyer there are rules that define standards of behaviors and violation thereof can quickly terminate not just employment but the career forever. Software doesn’t have that and the entire idea is utterly foreign. As a case in point all lawyers have a general understanding of the word ethic and how it applies to their profession. I have found, as a long time software developer, that most software developers have no idea what that word means and are quick to make faulty assumptions regarding its application. In the software developers’ defense there is not a lot of reason to accurately understand a thing that has never existed in the first place.

[anon9001]

> As a lawyer there are rules that define standards of behaviors and violation thereof can quickly terminate not just employment but the career forever.

That may be true in theory, but in practice most lawyers will protect other lawyers, and their regulatory bodies do very little to discourage bad actors.

[throwawaygh]

> As a lawyer there are rules that define standards of behaviors and violation thereof can quickly terminate not just employment but the career forever. Software doesn’t have that and the entire idea is utterly foreign.

This is mostly a function of the industry's age, and is not true of other fields of engineering. I'll be astounded if software isn't folded into Professional Engineering by mid-century.

[austincheney]

That seems highly optimistic. Most software developers are vehemently opposed to the professionalization of their industry.

[throwawaygh]

Of course they are. Most software developers wouldn't pass a PE exam. Professionalization of software engineering won't be done from the ground up. It will be imposed form the top down.