How Software Engineering Became a Profession

Dear Mr. Davis,

I tried to read your book referring to the subject of this blog. But the term engineering kept getting in the way. I always have had little respect for engineers as programmers. As the joke goes engineers are ok but i wouldn't want my daughter to marry one. One of the important aspects of being a programmers is the ability to see beyond the forest. Programming is an art. Trying to render it a subset of engineering is like telling a famous artist how to paint. As a programmer i was a whore i did what i was told to do and of course 10 times more to fill in the spaces of the boredom. It is like someone wants me to paint a wheel and on the side i paint the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. I have to laugh at your standards if i were to live by those i would have died long ago in the basement of the Pentagon. I would give you a A for effort but an F for fantasy. Anyway my new profession is as a curmudgeon to you young people who disdain the 1968 programmer who lived the life eclectic and formed the world you live in today. Today I walk the streets of Kisumu Kenya Africa and children run up to me to touch the Muzungo(white man) just like the employers did back in 1968. I have stopped saving those giants from disaster after disaster and now i will try my hand at saving the world. When from nothing you create a program that does something you tend to feel Godlike. In the societies of the Third world the "Engineer is King" now lets see if I can kick some engineering butt. I was there when this technological world was built. And as in the tale of two cities i quote " It was the best of times, it was the worst of times "