Whilst your argument is valid, cost is not the only governing factor when it comes to designing a structure - even if a Channel girder costs peanuts you still need to check your structure for safety and other parameters like say, environmental sustainability. (More material != Better design, irrespective of cost of structure).

I'm not really talking of the rigour of analysis or whether developing a file system is more "complex" than analysing/designing a 3 storied building. But the fact that decision making is supported using calculations that have been arrived at by experimentation, simulation or prototyping makes it a lot more empirical than programming.

I'm not sure if I want to reply to AC's, but I forgot to mention I'm a structural engineer myself by education... Most structures of respectable size fall back on Finite Element Analysis to gauge the response to a variety of loads. [The estimation of loads is a research topic in itself, where the factors of safety comes from a rigorous stochastic-based reliability analysis]. Once analysis has been performed, design is a bit of intuition, but certainly not estimation - it's more of heuristics... so you say, "this worked last time, let me try this option and analyse if it'll work this time too."

Going by the wikipedia definition decisions made in typical software development cycles don't seem to rely on a justification based mathematical or physical analysis. Admittedly I might be generalising, but is it more of a soft-skill then? ie something that you acquire on your own rather than something that can be formally taught or imparted as training? Makes you wince when you see all those job adverts asking for programmers to work in their "engineering departments"... Disc: I'm a coder myself, working in a structural engineering environment, so watching people design buildings around me feels more like "real" engineering... Go on, mod me down now.

Mod parent up. Software engineering is a skill (a la pottery) which has a few basic principles and is built upon through experience and intuition. Other forms of engineering (take structural engineering) for example fall back upon rigourous and empirical calculations that arise from training and formal education. That is not to decry the profession of software engineering(I am one myself) but I say that to differentiate it from the conventional trades of engineering that exist.

You can justify the design of a bridge built to carry a certain load under certain conditions under some assumed factors of safety but how can you, say, justify _empirically_ that the class architecture you designed is the best that could be or how c++ is better for a particular task than Python is. You can only quote from experience, gut feel and hearsay(for some ;) ) but can you show me the math?

Software engineering I feel is a craft, a certain art form where you can exhibit your wizardry, but it's still not something you CANNOT pick up without 4+ years of engg school training, whcih is the case with most other established forms of engineering.