So first there’s this: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/programmers-should-not-call-themselves-engineers/414271/
While some of his examples are weak and suffer from a lack of awareness of scale (e.g. that only a few phones of 10’s of millions are “bricked” by a major software update) this does make a valid point that the title “engineer” was appropriated by the software industry while none of the attendant checks and balances like regulation, professional organizations and requalification were. We all know the old saw about if bridges were engineered the same way software is “engineered” we’d have no way to cross rivers. So there’s something to his position but one might argue that progress would not be nearly as rapid if software “engineering” were subject to the same strictures as “real” engineering and, really, are a few bricked phones really in the same league as the Tacoma Narrows?
But then there’s this: http://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/
And I put my face in my hands.
Just in case you don’t think that’s a real thing: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4456438/how-do-i-correctly-pass-the-string-null-an-employees-proper-surname-to-a-so
Observing from my bunker 