Is the IT field part of engineering or not?

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I think thats the answer isn't it ?

If you're Alan Turing, IT is Maths.

If you're Steve Wozinak, IT is Engineering.

If you're John von Neumann or Charles Babage, IT is Maths and Engineering.

If you're Richard Feynman, IT is Physics.

If you're Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, IT is Business.

If you change the paper in the printer, IT for you is stationary

Are car mechanics engineers ? Some are some aren't...

 

I agree with Dmarsh on this but would add that IT has roots in many disciplines mathematics, engineering, sciences etc. so how could anybody individually, let alone "profession" wide, be able to label it?

IT can also be academic if you are researching the next new thing - perhaps that subsects of IT could be engineering (say networks) but then programming could be mathematics.

If you do first/desktop (second line) support, it could be classed less as engineering but more as customer service role.

Would you call a breakfix engineer that replaces parts inside of printers/workstations/servers etc. an engineer on the same level as a civil engineer or perhaps a 3rd line virtualisation specialist or is he just following the process to replace a part?? ie, hands to do a job, rather than an engineer?

Part of CEng or entirely new Profession - for me I'd go with CEng. For one reason if nothing else, its established and covers a very broad arena of engineering (civil, electrical, mechanical in some aspects). As said above, IT is also very broad, but perhaps not broad enough to create a new category for itself.

 

I agree with the general gist of what you say Arroryn, just as many people with average intelligence go and get a business degree, the same can be said for some aspects of IT.

However I have worked as an equal with computer scientists and electronics engineers on interesting R&D projects. Not all of IT are the people that can only pass multiple choice. Telecoms is now firmly IT yet it has a very prestigious history in engineering, look into information theory, Erlangs etc.

I've worked with many electronics engineers that have moved into IT, they have a full engineering training and are incredibly intelligent, other people in IT I've worked with have had physics or maths degrees.

Well look at the railways, they are a well established engineering discipline, nobody would be allowed to just walk in and design or manage a rail network nowadays, you'd need 10+ years experience but this occasionally still happens in IT. In the early days of rail this was more common however so is it just because IT is still immature ? On a side note many of IT's founders learn't their fundamentals in the MIT model train club. Read Steven Levys book.

I only got my job in IT because I went and got A-levels, a HND and a degree. Not all Computer Science degrees are cakewalks...

Huge generalisation, but yes IT is a field that is still open to all like many new fields, (think of the early days of rail, aviation, medicine, electronics) that has huge advantages and disadvantages. Some people have just walked in off the street and have a huge gap between their ears, others have spent years in the trenches or doing research.

There has to be a real investment in training and rigourous assessment, the BCS is just a group of like minded individuals at present, its not the same as other professional bodies. Its like comparing the Royal College of Surgeons to the House Builders Association.

Yes but difficulty alone does not make it engineering. Buying the right stocks is hard but very little of finance is engineering, many things are part art, part science. IT is frequently where computer science meets business, because of that, things like time to market, return on investment, come into play, the processes involved have to be 'fit for purpose'.

Ever thought the other professions might have much to gain by not recognizing IT? How many engineers from any profession including IT are members of the board? Business people like to enter IT when it suits them with little training, yet the reverse is not so easy.

Bankers have just gone and lost some of the biggest amounts of money in history, it makes most IT debacles pale into insignificance, yet bankers are still percieved as all knowing financial wizards...

 

I pose the question the other way round just to complicate things.

When does engineering become IT?
I studied engineering many years ago and rarely was a task carried out without CAD or computer simulation.

My dad was a senior engineer with Ford for many years and for the last few, if a car didn't start it was the geek with a laptop that saved the day - not a guy with a spanner...

 

I am an engineer I did a cybernetics degree with Computer Sci and also did BTEC level electrical engineering

Yes IT can be a part of engineering, its just another medium. Not just a tool

In cybernetics you can look at a system as different mediums math (theory), biological, chemical, electrical, physics/mechanical or combination. (of course some of the above are really combos).

With a system its just a matter of getting the same response as output(s) from input(s)

 

I think the answer given is indeed accurate, IT is and is not Engineering

lets compare the rank and file IT folks to what goes into building an office complex

IT staff are required at ALL levels, just like building staff

be that, the laborers at the bottom
the engineers working on specific systems like HVAC, Electrics, etc
or the Architect tying it all together

there are mirrors of each of these in IT, from the help desk and administrators, to engineers and designers, to enterprise architects

and the vast majority down the bottom would not qualify as engineers, they are not engineering anything!

 

In my own opimion, IT is a technical vocation and not an engineering one. Most people i know would call themselves IT technicians not engineers. As i see it we do not engineer anything, we do not engineer a way to make something work, we do not design and develop a way to solve mathematical solutions or forumulaic equations, we just make the systems work! If you build PCs, be it servers or desktops thats technical, if you install a network, from servers, hubs and switches to cables and connectors, then thats technical.

We discuss this in work a lot, whats and engineer and whats a technician, and my reply is always :-

A Engineer desgins somthing to solve a problem,
A technician makes the solution work!

 

Nope, IT is not engineering. When something is 'engineered' we speak of a system developed to perform a specific range of tasks: computer engineering involves developing computational systems to perform certain tasks, mechanical engineering involves developing machines dedicated to particular tasks, software engineering is developing software systems, etc. By the time that an IT person gets to any computer system the engineering has already been done - they repair a system that is already in existance - a system that has already been engineered to perform its task(s).

The only really grey area for me is 'programming in IT'. That straddles the boundaries between engineering and IT since they can write software supporting a system already in existence, and also supporting the users who use the system.

Far be it from me to tell these great minds what IT meant to them.

 

The only way to answer this, is to answer 2 other questions first:

What is IT?
What is engineering?


I think you have to split IT into different fields: hardware, software, usage

Hardware is part of engineering, specifically electrical engineering. Most of the standards are IEEE standards.
Software is a more modern field, its equivalent is probably architecture. Software is creative, built on the hardware. Architecture is creative, built on building / civil engineering.

What was engineering like when it first started? Were Brunel & Stephenson qualified engineers? What about da Vinci?

 

I'm not tellin them what to think, people see the world through their own eyes. Richard Feynman famously said this about the beauty of the rose. The point was he saw things through the view of a physicist, but it did not stop him from inventing Quantum Computing or helping to design the connection machine.

The guys that invented the transistor at Bell Labs were physicists, but how could IT as we know it exist without them? To try to create a seperation is meaningless, many people, concepts and objects belong in multiple categories.

They all contributed to many fields, but are recognised as having a major impact on computing and hence IT, even if for some in their day the phrase IT had yet to be invented.

I agree most of IT is not engineering, just as the guy that puts tyres on my car is not an engineer.

Engineering can be many things, sure programming can be engineering. As to hardware already having been designed, we know its not so clear cut. What if I write new software into the firmware? What if I take stock parts and use them to build a supercomputer? What if I write code that controls boilers, laser welding, mixers, lathes, valves or lifts? What if I write the code in your GPS, microwave or Antilock braking system ?

Where does coding or design stop and where does configuration and assembly start ? In many cases this is just semantics, what if I architect the infrastructure for a large corporation ?

Many IT and non IT firms do design and build their own hardware and software. I've worked for at least two such companies. I worked on a project that designed and built a computer, operating system and applications from scratch. Whats more the computer was designed to perform process control and metering, as such it could read from transducers and operate other machinery. One application I wrote for it was to control steam boilers and had to account for the entropy and enthalpy of steam. If it wasn't an engineering job then I don't know what is.

So who you calling a Noob, I've got more years exp, so I guess that makes you a noob too no ?

 

Maybe this is because physics is a very broad field that demands very in-depth knowledge? It isn't surprising at all when physicists take an interest in computing, since the underlying 'working' of a computer system heavily relies on physical principles.

If you are building on an already existing system to improve the way that it performs its tasks, then yes that is still engineering. My point was that it is not engineering if you are just keeping a system functioning.

Yes, this is engineering, and I do envy you for programming boilers. :\

You might have more years experience, but I have more knowledge. I bet that if you came to my studio you would be turned down at the very first stage as many have - even with a lot more experience than you. Go figure.

As they say, quality is much better than quantity.

 

It was used in gas powered power stations amougst other places as well as underwater wellheads, it was not used to heat your bath water.

You seem remarkably sure of yourself for someone who until a week ago didn't know what ternary meant...

Theres abosolutely no way you can draw such a conclusion. I take it you don't take arrogance as a weakness ? You'll be glad to know that the arrogance of young programmers usually fades with age, I'll look forward to finally having an adult conversation with you in around ten years time...

 

Does it really matter whether IT is part of engineering or not? IT is what it is. Why does it require a special label?

 

Like I already said IT is a medium used in engineering.

as a science the nearest is computer science.

some may argue maths however that is maths using the IT as a medium.

 

What's the difference? I'm sure you didn't do the hard bit!

And you have no idea what the duration of one week is. I was in Miami a week ago and hadn't visited certforums for a good ten-odd days before hand. Secondly, I did know what ternary meant - just that the term is rarely used in my field where you are required to be an excellent programmer so I simply forgot it. I could have done like you and check wikipedia and come on here like I already knew, but don't feel the need to appear to be a genius like some of us. I dare not list your lack of knowledge, or I'd go well beyond the word count permitted per post.

Dude, like every other post, you overcomplicate matters in order to boost your own ego. Why introduce Turing, Babbage, etc. into a thread in attempting to deduce whether IT is engineering or not? Every other person here has been pretty much straight-to-the-point apart from you, and you tell me to grow up?!

 

Yep, sounds very reasonable, IMO.

Can't see any argument for this. Can you expand?

 

I cant honestly remember why i put that .. was late and i had a few.. probably because computational mathematics is often listed as a separate discipline.

dyslexia and beer don't go together.

 

Auto mechanic or IT tech, what's the difference? I'm out of here... all you "engineers" are beneath me.