Are software engineers true engineers?

Abstract

Software engineering is an often used term to describe the activities, methods, and tools of large scale software development. There is an ongoing discussion whether Software Engineering can be considered as an engineering discipline. In many respects the development of software shares common properties of other engineering disciplines. In contrast to "classical" engineering fields, theories, questions, and approaches from the social sciences are more important than those from the natural sciences. This is investigated here by comparing the situation found in software engineering with several concepts of engineering in general. Three viewpoints are used to guide this comparison: one is a social stereotype of engineers; the second is the organization of engineering profession organizations; and the third are capabilities which the engineers of the future will need.