Even on the pages you've linked, Software or Computer Engineering is still Engineering. You might say that it just doesn't fit the definition (from the same exact page), but then you can either take the argument with the Wikipedia authors or just think on it on your own.
I'm sure that say a conteporary civil engineer would scoff at calling Nikola Tesla an [electrical] engineer, just like you're virtually scoffing at calling a Software Engineer only by Engineer.
Admittedly that the software field is young, but does it make it "worth" less? To entertain your argument, do you consider a person programming PLCs an electic engineer? What's the fundamental difference between a software programmer and them? I don't see any. So you cannot call one an [Electrical] Engineer and another one "just" Software Programmer.
Gardener is not an engineer. On a ship there are usually at least two departments: Deck, and Engineering. The latter are people in charge to make sure that ship's systems are up and running at all times. There is no theory behind it, or pretty much any maths. It is mostly boring maintenance. And I would be surprised that anyone would call those people non-engineers. So why bring this up? Engineering definitely has a vague connotation with certain terms like electrical power, mechanics, devices, construction, materials etc. As the gardener or a trash collector doesn't deal with any of those, noone is considering a gardener an Engineer.
One can say, oh it's the title inflation, but that actually applies to any profession then. Or to put it differently, what makes a person an engineer? The work that person does, or the title it was given to them by some institution? Is it both? Is someone an engineer but is a career politician? I sure know one, and the guy will always be legally an engineer. This is a classic "what makes an art, Art?" question which is another can of worms I'm not going to open.
So I'm not sure what you're arguing then when all of this is on a very shaky ground. My position is that it is just a matter of a title and social convention. If you're a part of a engineering department, then I'm sure people outside of that department will call you an engineer. Inside of that department you might be a programmer of say a backend service, I could be a platforms guy, Alice could be QA engineer, and Bob could be a hardware engineer. It just doesn't really matter in the end. All of those are just social constructs which change with time. Or if we take it to a institution level: in some countries you have legally recognized Software Engineers (as I found out in other threads), in a country like mine you don't have one, whether we like it or not. So as I said in my previous post, this isn't maths or physics, and it is just a social construct which varies all over the world. So arguing about it is like arguing about the definition of art. I like spending time on engineering more so that's it from me ;)
You can define engineering in many ways, and none of them is equally right in every possible context in which the term is used (so it has this in common with every other word).
However, there are some ideas clustered around that seem to have something to do with it. Engineering on a ship has to do with electrical and mechanical systems, and in a highly constrained set of outcomes, essentially reducible to a single bit at any point in time. (Either the systems are up and running right now, or they aren't.) Within this system of evaluation of outcomes, it's not surprising if the engineers in this context aren't using maths every day but are engaged mainly in more practical actions. However, you can be sure that they know a lot of safety tolerances and operational characteristics of various ship systems that would be characterized as mathematical, even if they are mostly operating well within tolerances that make these operations routine.
One reason why people argue about "software engineering" is that there are authors who define it specifically to include scientistic or bureaucratic rituals that have no mathematical underpinning, while excluding the difficult mathy bits of engineering. The further you get from actual engineering, the more common this definition gets.
I'm sure that say a conteporary civil engineer would scoff at calling Nikola Tesla an [electrical] engineer, just like you're virtually scoffing at calling a Software Engineer only by Engineer.
Admittedly that the software field is young, but does it make it "worth" less? To entertain your argument, do you consider a person programming PLCs an electic engineer? What's the fundamental difference between a software programmer and them? I don't see any. So you cannot call one an [Electrical] Engineer and another one "just" Software Programmer.
Gardener is not an engineer. On a ship there are usually at least two departments: Deck, and Engineering. The latter are people in charge to make sure that ship's systems are up and running at all times. There is no theory behind it, or pretty much any maths. It is mostly boring maintenance. And I would be surprised that anyone would call those people non-engineers. So why bring this up? Engineering definitely has a vague connotation with certain terms like electrical power, mechanics, devices, construction, materials etc. As the gardener or a trash collector doesn't deal with any of those, noone is considering a gardener an Engineer.
One can say, oh it's the title inflation, but that actually applies to any profession then. Or to put it differently, what makes a person an engineer? The work that person does, or the title it was given to them by some institution? Is it both? Is someone an engineer but is a career politician? I sure know one, and the guy will always be legally an engineer. This is a classic "what makes an art, Art?" question which is another can of worms I'm not going to open.
So I'm not sure what you're arguing then when all of this is on a very shaky ground. My position is that it is just a matter of a title and social convention. If you're a part of a engineering department, then I'm sure people outside of that department will call you an engineer. Inside of that department you might be a programmer of say a backend service, I could be a platforms guy, Alice could be QA engineer, and Bob could be a hardware engineer. It just doesn't really matter in the end. All of those are just social constructs which change with time. Or if we take it to a institution level: in some countries you have legally recognized Software Engineers (as I found out in other threads), in a country like mine you don't have one, whether we like it or not. So as I said in my previous post, this isn't maths or physics, and it is just a social construct which varies all over the world. So arguing about it is like arguing about the definition of art. I like spending time on engineering more so that's it from me ;)