i was once turned down on a pay raise because "it was not like i was an engineer, i was just savvy" (highschool degree here)
The dangers of unlicensed engineering
41–50 of 74 posts
Re: The dangers of unlicensed engineering
#42> He said there is a potential for violation if DOT > and the public were misled by "engineering-quality > work"- even if the authors did not claim to be > engineers. Isn't this essentially saying that you can be too smart/thorough for your own good, and that the government is going to punish you for not getting a license to use your abilities? What the hell is 'engineering-quality work' anyways? Talk about an amorph…
> He said there is a potential for violation if DOT > and the public were misled by "engineering-quality work" Could be a problem here. If I make a complete balls-up of a project would the public be misled into thinking that the government had done it - even if I wasn't a government employee?
Clearly the DOT employees engineers that are severely lacking if someone is able to put together a report of 'engineering-quality' that bamboozles them into doing something that doesn't make sense.
Re: The dangers of unlicensed engineering
#43Ha, funny seeing this on Hacker News. I live a half mile from the intersections they're talking about. Will definitely need to drive by and do some "unlicensed engineering" of my own.
Re: The dangers of unlicensed engineering
#44The punchline: "If Cox is found to have practiced engineering without a license, Ritter said, the likely action would be a letter telling him not to do it again."
If my brother has a headache and I give him an aspirin, am I practising medicine?
Re: The dangers of unlicensed engineering
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think software industry is slowly headed this way: that there will come a point when you cannot let a member of the public use something based on your code without you being a licensed SE.
I think the uncertainties inherent in writing software that depends on many other complex libraries/frameworks will tend to discourage strong liability for bugs. The average Win32 program or Java web app has a dizzying list of dependencies and it would be impossible for the programmer sitting on top of that software stack to make any guarantees about the stuff underneath. In certain highly restricted domains (typical…
The average Win32 program or Java web app has a dizzying list of dependencies and it would be impossible for the programmer sitting on top of that software stack to make any guarantees about the stuff underneath.
That, divorced from further arguments, is not an extraordinarily strong argument against liability for defects. After all: the engineer who builds upon such a stack has presumably, more or less consciously, made the decision that defects are acceptable - otherwise they would have chosen something less complex. Is there any particular reason someone should not be held accountable for that decision?
Re: The dangers of unlicensed engineering
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is sounding a lot like a profession making it illegal for others to do anything that could decrease their own income.
However dubious this instance of censuring someone's comments simply because they've bothered to do some research to support their case may be, I think it generally is in the public interest that people actually representing themselves as engineers have a sound understanding of what they're actually doing (e.g. designing bridges that don't fail and kill people). I doubt civil engineers in the US are disproportionatel…
I wholeheartedly disagree. While this instance is especially compelling, certainly, you're still attempting to argue that someone might invalidate their point by making 'too good' of an argument without the qualifications.
Someone presenting an argument to whomever (the public, the city, etc.) has every right to make their case to the full extent possible (implied: honestly, without representing themselves falsely). No one has represented themselves as an engineer falsely so... Uhh, this sounds like a big load of crap, both specifically and generally.
Re: The dangers of unlicensed engineering
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the uncertainties inherent in writing software that depends on many other complex libraries/frameworks will tend to discourage strong liability for bugs. The average Win32 program or Java web app has a dizzying list of dependencies and it would be impossible for the programmer sitting on top of that software stack to make any guarantees about the stuff underneath. In certain highly restricted domains (typical…
The average Win32 program or Java web app has a dizzying list of dependencies and it would be impossible for the programmer sitting on top of that software stack to make any guarantees about the stuff underneath. That, divorced from further arguments, is not an extraordinarily strong argument against liability for defects. After all: the engineer who builds upon such a stack has presumably, more or less consciously,…
The question is, would we expect authors of libraries to indemnify other developers against liability if the fault is in the library itself?
Re: The dangers of unlicensed engineering
#48He said there is a potential for violation if DOT and the public were misled by "engineering-quality work"- even if the authors did not claim to be engineers. I might be too literal here, but if you did not intend to mislead anyone, why should you be responsible for how "the public" interprets your work.
Exactly. I can't even begin to see how making a case to a third party deciding authority instantly thrusts you into taking full responsibility for public safety. What an absurd concept.
Re: The dangers of unlicensed engineering
#49Licensed engineer here (Massachusetts). I don't know WTF Lacy is smoking. I've been in a position where community groups have performed their own analysis to challenge my work and that's fine - either their analysis is wrong and I can point out their errors, or (in the rare occasion) I have indeed missed something and I revise my report. But going after the group who prepared the analysis because it looks "engineerin…
The article claimed Kevin Lacy was "chief traffic engineer for the [North Carolina] state DOT". I assume that makes him a bureaucrat rather than a working engineer. And bureaucrats have all sorts of "interesting" ways of working.
Edit: This is not the first time Mr. Lacy has faced criticism either: http://charlotte.johnlocke.org/blog/?p=453
Re: The dangers of unlicensed engineering
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is sounding a lot like a profession making it illegal for others to do anything that could decrease their own income.
Agreed! I shouldn't need an M.D. to stitch you up!
It's more like if someone stitches me up, in an emergency, after warning me they aren't a doctor, they will be sued by the AMA for "doctor-level work".