GIGO

Software Engineers?

I recently contemplated buying a poster on occupations to brighten up the wall of my toddler's room and get him thinking about what he's going to do to support his mother in her rapidly-approaching old age.

You couldn't accuse the poster of having even the faintest whiff of sexual equality about it: the nurse (female) stood alongside the doctor (male); the fireman climbed up a ladder and the teacher wrote on her blackboard; the semi-balding, white-coated, elderly scientist poured something out of a beaker; the overall-clad engineer was cheerfully waving a wrench in the direction of his car.

It was the last picture which interested me as I have heard that professional engineers in the US are becoming increasingly concerned about the image of engineers and engineering. This is not necessarily confined to the joke area of toilet cleaners being termed "sanitation engineers", but has extended into professional areas such as the software industry.

"Real" engineers are attempting to take the name away from those engaged in software development because of concerns of lack of professional discipline or accountability in the software business. Real engineers, after all, design their buildings and factory systems with a goodly amount of safety factors and redundancies thrown in to ensure that the structures remain safe and usable under almost any condition.

As anyone who's ever had any experience with computers knows, if the hardware bugs don't get you, the software ones will. There's an oft-quoted reference concerning the growth of the information technology market, citing how if cars had progressed the way the computer has, a vehicle would cost ten dollars and run 1,000 kilometres on a tank of gas. What the computer pundits fail to add is that they'd also blow up every second Thursday.

With more and more businesses dependent on computer systems -- from international electronic trading and banking corporations to home-based consultancies -- it is vital that we can be confident our software "engines" have a decent warrant of fitness.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.