Matt Whiting wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
Matt Whiting wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
North Carolina is one:
"Illegal use of engineer title raises ire of profession"
http://triad.bizjournals.com/triad/s...12/focus3.html
Did you actually read this article? On page 2 it supports what I
said, not what you claim.

Hey - I doth protest! I kinda read it! Proper context sir:

"In other words, if the word engineer appears in your job title,
business card or stationary, the public can assume you have met the
qualifications to be a licensed engineer. So if non-engineers use the
title, they publicly claim to be something they're not and are
offering services they're not licensed to offer."

Ceratinly! The context is offering services to the public, just as I've
been saying! Notice "the public" can assumer.... If you are only
working for your industrial employer designing products, you are fine.


"Ritter says engineers must only be licensed by the state if they are
offering their services directly to the public and not just to their
employer.

For example, an engineer designing roads would have to be licensed,
but someone with engineering training working for Ford to design cars
to drive those roads would not need to be licensed."

"But, Ritter says, if the "engineer" working for Ford begins telling
people he's an engineer, he may be crossing the line.
"If he hands you his business card and it says engineer on it, he is
putting himself out in public as an engineer," he says.
I presumed from _the entire context_ that the article was suggesting
that simply making the job title "Software Engineer" public is
sufficient to be in violation of the law. Programmers exist by the
ton[1] who have "Software Engineer" on the business cards their
employers give them and I can assure you that those cards are handed
out on a regular basis to prospects, customers, vendors, friends, and
family. And when they write their resumes they will almost certainly
claim the title.

I will concede, though, that you are absolutely correct that simply
having an internal company title with the term "engineer" in it is
perfectly legal. But that, I submit, is the exceptional case.

I've heard some urban legens along the lines of the Ford example given
above, but I've heard more court cases that through out such claims.
Unless the engineer gave his Ford business card to John Q. Public AND
also offered them engineering services, he is safe.


Matt (an engineer by training, by trade, and by license in two states)

Just curious, but what kind of engineering?

Initially software (BSCS degree), then later electrical (BSEE) and I'm
about to complete my structural engineering masters and plan to do some
consulting in this field as I enter retirement in a few years. My
original PE in NY state was taken in electrical, but for my recently
acquired PA license I listed both electrical and structural as areas of
practice.

I'll admit that after getting my EE degree, after 5 years of work
experience, I have to concur with the folks who claim that software
engineering really doesn't exist. I've seen nothing in industry that
even approaches the way both electrical and structural engineers
operate. I've heard of a few aerospace companies that use, or at least
claim to use, formal proofs for software, etc., and that is probably
approaching the way a true engineering discipline operates, but I've yet
to really see this in action. All of the software I wrote and was
involved with wasn't at all based on any scientific laws or principles
and really was closer to art (writing a novel), than it was to science.


Matt
I have to disagree with your point of view that Software Engineering is
not engineering . I have both a BSCS and a MSCS and have worked at
both Fortune 5 companies and well as much smaller organizations. While,
just like in other engineering fields, it's possible not to follow a
rigorous development process, I have seen and worked within a process
that had all the hallmarks of a engineering process in other fields.
That you have not seen it does not mean it does not exist.

As part of this thread I started looking in to the licensing of
Engineers and looking at the national standards I saw that there is no
licensing of the software engineering field. The closest I could find
was Electrical and Computer Systems but that was 70 directed to the
electrical aspects of designing the hardware with a small ( 30%) amount
devoted to software itself. It would seem that NCEES thinks software
is important enough to test for but not to license as a separate
category. Perhaps this will change but given that this board equates
surveying with engineering make me question just how relevant they are.


John