From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

> The fact that CS is based on mathematic principles does not make it a math degree (although that did make things challenging for me at times).

But in order for it to be a useful degree you need to have math as supporting subject. This is the same as if you want to be molecular biologist you need to know a few semesters worth of chemistry otherwise you'd be given endless hard time, which you seem to understand.

I studied math at uni but because I haven't studied enough it always is so much harder to grok all important things in programming and CS. I would argue that it is a huge roadblock for anyone wanting to become any good at CS, but then again there's programming and there's 'programming'.

Sound like Java also. Python is fairly easy to at least learn the basics of how its cogs are spinning. I'm not saying it can't happen in Python but to me it seems that it happens more often in Java community.

This was still a somewhat big issue for me when I was young. I'm in my mid twenties and my parent didn't really believe in tech until very recently (my success in the industry played a role in changing their mind), now they use the internet, stream content through the TV, play games on their phones, Facebook and Skype... This wasn't the case 10 years ago, though. I had to fight really hard to get an internet connection at home in 2004! Investment in computers in my household was minimal (In hindsight, I wish I had been more proactive about this - I missed a lot of opportunities). They didn't really believe in a tech career - My dad wanted me to follow a military career like the one he had!

It wasn't until I moved out and started paying my own bills that they realised I might have been on to something. Essentially, my parents believed computers were for video games, a tool for kids to have fun. Even when I showed interest in areas like programming or graphic design.

I do not. That article, which is remarkably poorly written, has very little to do with what I'm talking about. I don't know how to concisely be a lot clearer than what I said.

Look, in Canada, as in the U.S., and to the best of my knowledge in most jurisdictions, there is a concept of professional accreditation. There are "professional organizations" that have memberships, and obviously the ruling on who is and is not a member is determined by the organization, which is all pretty normal. What's interesting is that national law enshrines certain branding around that organization. For example, in most countries, calling yourself a "doctor", without any justification, is a crime. In particular, representing yourself as a medical doctor, in a way which might mislead lay people, is "practicing without a license". In Canada, representing yourself as an "engineer" has similar rules around it. Compare with e.g. the UK situation, in which the word "engineer" itself is not legally protected, but if you call yourself a "Chartered Engineer" without the permission of Engineering Council UK, that's a crime.

To learn about the education process of an engineer, perhaps read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en... , a much more useful article than what you linked.

Almost completely unrelatedly, most academic disciplines that have related professional programs, such as medicine or law, have more than one stream of post-graduation education. One stream is intended to be primary or supplementary education for working practitioners in the field, the other for academic study in the field. For example a LL.B. (a.k.a. a J.D., as title inflation is commonplace) is typically taken after some kind of bachelor's degree, but is really more like a second bachelor's degree than it is like an M.A. or M.Sc. or Ph.D. or any other academic master's degree. If you want to do such an academic track, you might take a B.A., then an LL.B./J.D., then perhaps an LL.M. or LL.D. or Ph.D. in law. That's one bachelor's degree, one professional degree, and two academic graduate degrees.

Back to Engineering, one might take a B.Sc. (or B.Ap.Sc. or whatever) in Engineering, perhaps certify to become a professional engineer, and then one might choose to take additional formal education. If one is professionally-oriented, some schools might offer a professionally-oriented Master's degree for you. That is different from an academically-oriented Master's, and each school that offers both will have some way of disambiguating them, which is probably not fully standardized from school to school, even within Canada (or any other jurisdiction). Perhaps call one a Master's of Engineering, and the other a Master's of Science in Engineering, whatever. That's what your article was alluding to. As for its list, it only (non-exhaustively) lists countries with equivalent degrees by other names.

All of this stuff about graduate degrees is irrelevant to jrm2k6's comment and my reply thereto. jrm2k6 was mentioning that regulation about the word "engineerig" is stricter in Canada, and my reply was that that's mostly not relevant to the practice of those who write software.

> My inner nerd is as strong as ever but I don't like to waste time.

Love the inner nerd phrase. I'm 63 and love wasting time now because when I do my brain works on the problem(s) at had and I write better code or create a better architecture when I get to it.

  Less is more.
  Slow down to speed up.