Real Engineer versus a "Software Engineer"
OK, those guys sitting on that steel girder weren't engineers either, but at least they were supervised by a real one.
Engineers have a code of discipline, a strict regimen of education, and continuing professional education. In some countries software developers adhere to this code: in Canada and the US they do not. Very few software developers in North America are anything like engineers - they shouldn't refer to themselves as such.
I agree with Arved. Most software projects that I've been a part of have been made up of a loose assortment of developers, most of whom had some formal programming training (either a computer science or software engineering degree). Usually, one or two members of the team are given the title of lead programmer or architect. In my mind, these titles are interchangeable because there is nothing in our profession that formally distinguishes one from the other. Years of experience is often the only factor. I'm not discrediting the value of experience, but if it's not backed by continued education and training, it can lead to software projects that simply carry over bad design and anti-patterns from previous projects. There is no formal requirement in our industry for software engineers or architects to certify that they are up to date on current trends and technologies and that they will follow best practices. Heck, there's not even a need to illustrate that they will adhere to basic software tenets like DRY, open/closed principle, composition over inheritance, or that they have some knowledge of common design patterns. I stated previously that "most" developers on my teams had software or computer science degrees. It's worth noting that some of the best programmers I've come across had fine arts or other non-technical backgrounds. They excelled as programmers because they were constantly reading books that helped refine their craft. Not just books on whatever technology they happened to be using at the time, but books on design patterns, testing, performance, UI, and even ... architecture. Through our formal computer science education, we might have been exposed to all of these facets of our craft, but for a lot of us the training stops after we graduate. We then learn from being in the trenches and we figure out how to do things by reapplying whatever patterns are used in the app we're developing, good or bad. We toss aside all those best practices they taught us in school in favour of "just getting things done quickly". We are encouraged to cut corners by our peers, our managers, our team leads and our architects. I'm not saying that this isn't done in other professions, but at the very least we could respect engineers and architects, professions with strict certification standards, by not appropriating their titles. When engineers cut corners, buildings collapse and people die. We just push out another release and hope that not too many people noticed. If software engineers built buildings, I would live and work on a boat. If we want to call ourselves engineers and architects, then we should insist on quality first, and back it with proof.
Merriam Webster a person who has scientific training and who designs and builds complicated products, systems. Can this be considered a software system?