![Vibe [Mandatory Roller Coaster]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/61c54871-0154-4758-9cb6-188905f2c241.png){kind=link}
Aram J. French | website
Transcript
A single panel comic with a malformed, slightly damaged, yet freshly built home in the background. In the foreground, a man in a hard hat and a reflective vest is speaking to another man, presumably the buyer, saying, “It’s called vibe construction. I’m not even a contractor! Pretty soon all buildings will be made this way.”
both are real engineers (but no, a simple programmer is not a software engineer), so you can skip the quotes. but yes, CIVIL engineers are licensed, opposed to most other (mechanical, electrical…) engineers
I am someone who has worked professionally as both a civil engineer and a software “engineer.” When I put scare quotes around the latter, I mean them.
The difference in rigor, sense of responsibility for the public good, and especially power to push back against harmful ideas by management, is shocking.
DRM, enshittification, dark patterns, Cambridge Analytica, sneaky “telemetry:” none of that shit would be allowed to exist because it would violate professional ethical standards, if software “engineering” were a real profession that had any!
for me that just sounds like products of civil engineers are harder regulated, otherwise the management would push you there to cut every corner possible as well. in some countries you can see exactly this.
Don’t blame the dev for what the system lacks. We took millenia to get here for buildings and had rich people and politicians literally falling through floors drowning in shit before. Software is relatively new and gets extorted for maximum profit while slow-moving projects that try to do everything right get shamed (and usually extorted since doing it right entails Open-Source, which now gets laundered through probability engines). There are effectively no guardrails devs can use to protect something from bad ideas management has, and management is on an AI-induced power trip right now.
In such an environment actual buildings would also be made out of paper and have surveillance cams in the subscription-based toilet. I’d bet someone from a country with a corrupt system and lack of regulation enforcement could tell you tales about it. I think you were just lucky.
The devs are literally to blame. The very lack of professional ethics and responsibility of the devs is the very reason why calling them engineers is a fucking insult to real engineers.
I’m not blaming devs, I’m advocating for changing the system.
The real question is, why is everyone shooting the messenger? Do y’all like abuse and enshittification?
Then aim better and stop taking cheap shots at devs. Those with a backbone get systematically shamed and cut, the same way “annoying voices” from engineers in countries with a corrupt construction business / politics get dealt with. In IT however the damages are way more abstract while a collapsed airport roof is something tangible people immediately understand just by looking at it. And as mentioned, in comparison it’s an extremely young profession lacking prior collective knowledge or bad examples. Do I even need to mention that the biggest software companies and ad companies are either the exact same company or part of the same structures (not to mention they’re tight with one of the biggest governments who outright alienates former allies), so any alternatives can be systematically fucked over?
And there are Software Engineers who really try, sometimes in places like the EU where a real chance for change exists. But the ad industry and mega corps with an army of lobbyists are still fighting back, and you’re not helping by attacking devs for supposedly not having backbones.
You’re taking shots at those trying to deal with this shit show while staying financially afloat, then pretending you’re actually on their side to immediately play the victim. You can’t be damn serious.