[consumer451]

> Maybe this is what will turn software engineering into an Engineering field.

Oh man, I think you may have touched the third rail here.

My first job out of high school was as an AutoCAD/network admin at a large Civil & Structural firm. I later got further into tech, but after my initial experience with real Engineering, "software engineering" always made my eyes roll. Without real enforced standards, without consequences, it's been vibe engineering the whole time.

In Civil, Structural, and many other fields, Engineers have a path to Professional Engineer. That PE stamp means that you suffer actual legal consequences if you are found guilty of gross negligence in your field. This is why Engineering firms are a collective of actual Professional Engineer partners, and not your average corporate structure.

The issue is that in software dev, we move fast, SOC2 is screenshot theater, and actual Engineering would slow things way down. But, now that coding is fast, maybe you are correct! Maybe vibe coding is the forcing function for actual Software Engineering!

___

edit: I just searched to see if my comment was correct, and it turns out that Software PE was attempted! It was discontinued due to low participation.

> NCEES will discontinue the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) Software Engineering exam after the April 2019 exam administration. Since the original offering in 2013, the exam has been administered five times, with a total population of 81 candidates.

https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...

[SequoiaHope]

Note that other types of engineering are also often vibes based. The mechanical engineering for a rocket engine is extremely rigorous but the engineering for an injection molded housing for a cheap cell phone is a lot more about following a few heuristics and getting it out the door. Even in robotics where I work, it’s mostly about making parts that pass whatever acceptance tests you come up with. In civil engineering and aerospace failure costs human lives and millions or billions of dollars. In robotics maybe you have some machines fail in the field but in many instances you have one overarching safety system and many of the parts are irrelevant to that. The camera housing for example. So no paper trail or mathematical design validation is required to prove you designed it right. Often those are desirable but if you just manufacture it and test it a lot you’re probably fine.

This was something I noticed in my early career in mechanical engineering and later doing PCB design and software for robotics. It’s easy to find firms that just need adequate parts without the professional certifications or ass-covering calculations of other engineering fields.

All this to say, it’s not just software versus the rest of them. From my position, civil and aerospace seemed more like the exception while much of the rest of the engineering world is more vibes based.

[consumer451]

Sure, but as "software eats the world," maybe it should be the most formalized of all Engineering, as it runs everything...?

[dymk]

Probably not. Some things are critically important, but most things just don’t matter that much if they break or degrade some.

[popcorncowboy]

What makes it a profession is not just the certification, it's the burden of responsibility for consequences. Your lawyer, accountant, and real engineers carry "we need insurance for this" level of risk in their work, all the way up to "can go to prison for getting things really wrong".

Until and unless software is held to that standard, software will never be engineering and always just a craft that can be performed to any or no standard.

[hliyan]

This is actually not a bad exam to administer: https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/FINAL_PE-Electr...

[consumer451]

In the Civil & Structural world, there is no greater honor than to be on the standards committee.

I hope that this becomes a thing in Software Engineering.

[smcin]

IEEE SWEBOK tried to and is generally considered not to have achieved what it set out to do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Engineering_Body_of_K...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41907412

See if you can find anyone outside of PE relying on it. ACM withdrew from it in 2000.

[Applejinx]

Imagine how much money will go into lobbying for some particular AI to BE the standards committee.

[JayShower]

Yeah, did they ever put out recommended study materials too?

[hliyan]

Perhaps this will make a comeback when the need arises to distinguish between actual software programmers and prompters.

[andoando]

Eh writing software for healthcare, or aircraft or self driving cars is more rigorous than an EE working on industrial lighting or toys.

Im sure for the most part, engineers in physical space deal with the same kind of tradeoffs software engineers make, where you try your best based on industry standards, personal past experiences without some way to prove what youve done is right

[bigfatkitten]

> Eh writing software for healthcare, or aircraft or self driving cars is more rigorous than an EE working on industrial lighting or toys.

That’s a relatively small field within the software industry.

Most of the work being done (adding new fields to CRUD apps etc) is glorified clerical work, where the people doing it are rightfully fearful of being automated out of existence by AI.