Re:An Engineer can be sued. (Score 1)

Look into the history of licensing of engineers. There were good reasons. It is also noteworthy that it was fought against. I am told that when licensing of engineers came into impact with civil service employees for armed forces at bases in Texas, the opposition complained it would slow things down, increase overhead and increase the expense of hiring and employing people. That all sounds right, and yet, still necessary.

Most people writing software do not need the heavy 'E' engineering, and money will flow even with the crappy software and lack of due diligence. Other applications of the art should be under the heavy 'E' and yet, are not. What would that look like? Standards of testing for QA? I would like to see that, especially when testing engineering software written for engineers to use while doing (non-software) engineering.

It is interesting to note laws protecting lawyers from being employed by directors or VP's that do not have a law JD themselves. Do PE's have this protection? Last I checked the answer is 'no'. The requirement that 'software engineers' be licensed might start that. It could start limiting who should be a DoE, CTO or VPoE. Looking back on what I've been through, that would be mostly good. A standard to operate by is a burden and a shield.

It looks like Texas department has just about given up on licensing software engineers. There are times when I despair for my software industry as hopelessly undisciplined, lacking in self-imposed standards, unorganized and bullied by non-engineering disciplines. I look at other industries: are there licensing requirements for firing up CRISPR and slinging some genes around? I think so, though not on a technologist level, mainly on a clinical level around human treatment and experiments. I hope I am wrong.