[jrockway]

They call themselves 'software engineers' because skilled technical workers prefer to associate with their cultural equals in an established white-collar profession than blue-collar craftsmen.

I hate the term "software engineer" but for the opposite reason: I see "engineering" as a lesser profession than computer programming. In programming, you never solve the same problem twice; you make something new each time because you can freely reuse what you made last time. In engineering, you're building the same bridge 1000 times over 1000 rivers.

A "software engineer" is a person that makes a career out of solving the same problem over and over again. There are a lot of people like this, but I'm not going to associate myself with that.

[gamble]

There's nothing wrong with being a craftsman. I think programmers would be better off if they embraced programming as a craft, instead of pretending that it obeys scientific principles as yet undiscovered and can be practiced without reference to the skill of the individual programmer.

[jamieb]

There's plenty of areas where "writing code" is engineering, and there's plenty others where its rocket science. Then there's some where its Apollo 13.

The trick is to know which is which.