After Part 3 on this topic I am motivated to reply. As an individual trained as an engineer (electrical), and after spending my 25 years or so of professional work more or less evenly divided between hardware/electrical engineering and software, I am oftentimes shocked at the lack of basic discipline, rigor, and attention to detail in the software world. It is starkly obvious to me that software development is best-viewed as an engineering discipline. The parallels are obvious and pervasive. The lack of this type of training in our IT curriculums is obvious, and growing. The emphasis is more and more on the latest wiz-bang tools and ideas at the expense of fundamentals, and the quality and cost of software suffers for it. Comparing to these other disparate occupations is entertaining, but not very useful.