[sroussey]

An an electrical engineer, I often scoff at people using the term software engineer. Even though I belong in the software developer class. So you can imagine how I look at “prompt engineering”.

True engineering is dealing with unchanging and unchangeable constraints (which you find in the natural world). It’s exceedingly difficult to do without a four year degree which is usually not enough.

This other stuff you can learn in a weekend, well, I wish they would not take the word engineering.

[chankstein38]

I'm not here to defend prompt engineering I could care less what it's called but why are you people so offended by people using the term? It's inarguable that there are people that are better at getting certain results from these new models in their first shot because they know how to interact with the system better than others and understand its inner workings better.

Maybe the term engineer has been watered down from what you learned in school but in my and many other people's views its synonymous with hacker in a lot of these categories. I wouldn't call an electrical engineer an electrical hacker but if you weren't an electrical hacker you'd be a pretty garbage electrical engineer. If you've never messed around with or tested a concept or built a circuit for fun you'd probably hate your job and be worse at it. These people are doing these things with prompting and with software.

[crtified]

The strong feelings around the term Engineer partly date from the historical context, where inadequate engineering was more commonly and directly reflected in real human deaths. This was a huge motivator for the title of engineer to become codified and locked down to a specific set of proven and repeatable skills.

These days, most long-established engineering disciplines and similar professions are codified to the extent of having member's-only institutions and charters, and basically become "old boys clubs", including ranks and rituals.

Hence there is a divide, between these old schools of engineering and their exclusive ways, and those who use the term engineer more broadly and literally.

The old boys club mentality has many flaws, but they do have that one strong original point: that the harm one can inadvertently cause to others, under the title of engineer (or any expert), is proportional to the expertise claimed. If you claim you can design bridges, then it's incredibly important that you're right - else deaths.

[sroussey]

Then use “prompt doctor” or “I have a masters in prompting”

Up I don’t hire a civil engineer for a bridge or your house that got their training from YouTube. It’s actually illegal. Engineers must be licensed.

[dmingod666]

I think the real value is in context setting for API based access (for app integration)

[jschveibinz]

This comment is neither necessary nor productive.

[chankstein38]

Agreed lol you could've avoided making it instead of commenting to declare that

[jschveibinz]

Well, I’m with you, but you are not among friends on this forum. There are a lot of folks who are pretty dang happy with that “engineer” title. And they will protect it with their downvotes.

[airstrike]

Wait until you hear about "social engineering" :O the horror

ᐟˢ

[Aerbil313]

I think life is too short to get angry at language. Note that this is equally valid for all software engineers who downvoted you here. I didn’t.