[titzer]

Most engineering disciplines are considerably more regulated than software development, and for good reason; bridges and skyscrapers falling down can kill people. Even electrical engineering and device manufacturing have to fit in with standards that address shock hazard and EMF interference.

I actually do think it is the responsibility of the language and runtime system to ensure some base-level safety of programs. The one constant over the years is that programmers keep making mistakes. No matter how much they keep yelling "trust us", they (we) just keep screwing up. That's not to pillory us programmers. It's just the facts that everyone screws up. In some sense, engineering is putting processes and procedures and checks in place that move human fallibility out of the critical load-bearing situations so that a simple whoops or memory slip doesn't kill people or ruin things.