Comment by cadamsdotcom
Comment by cadamsdotcom 2 days ago
Yep. Consider woodworking - the wood you use might warp over time, or maybe part of it ends up in the sun or the thing you’ll make gets partly exposed to water.
Can you make a thing that’ll serve its purpose and look good for years under those constraints? A professional carpenter can.
We have it easy in software.
Woodworking is to civil engineering as being an IT help desk rep is to being a software engineer. Woodworking isn't engineering either. If you build a system with aspects you can measure and predictably tune, you're engineering. If you're making skilled alterations to an existing structure or system without applied math or science, you're partaking in a craft.
Software engineering blurs the lines, sure, but woodworking isn't engineering ever.