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Some software (certainy not ALL) does have very strict compliance testing - On the wall of my cubicle, I have a printout list that explains the various regulatory standards any software I write (Yes, I also do 'Software Engineering') must meet - for example, all of our Alarms are software-driven - and they have certain federal regulatory standards they must meet, and if they do not meet or exceed those requirements, someone is in trouble... It's certainy different for some guy writing code to create a Word Processor... If the Bold doesn't work, no one will die...

I DO have a problem with 'sanitation engineers', 'Customer Service Engineers' and in most cases 'Software Engineers'... Some VB Programmer, writing software, is a lot different than a guy who, for example, writes software which communicates with Natural Gas Meters for meter 'proving'...

I guess my point is, not ALL Software "Engineers" are Engineers - but some are...

It's certainy different for some guy writing code to create a Word Processor... If the Bold doesn't work, no one will die...

Thank you for demonstrating the exact problem with the state of software development today.

"If the Bold doesn't work, no one will die." How do you know that? I can think up scenarios where if the bold doesn't work, someone could well die. Patient care instructions where something other than the usual is normally highlighted in bold -- printout doesn't have any bold text, overworked nurse misses the special instructions, patient dies. (Sure, there are other problems in the overall methods and procedures if that happens, but it could happen.)

That sort of sloppy thinking gets carried through to other applications. Read the RISKS newsgroup (comp.risks) or digest for numerous examples. Not all fatal by any means, but ranging from that through having ones life ruined (think identity theft) and a few examples of plain inconvenience.

I guess my point is that, unless you know absolutely all the possible uses your software will be put, you'd better write it as though somebody's life depended on it, because it might. (Well, modulo the cost of such development, which is a real engineering trade-off too.)