What Is Software Engineering

What is the difference between a programmer and a Software Engineer?Fundamentally there is little difference as both write software. Software Engineers are programmers but it's how they do the job that differs.
Software Engineering is an approach to developing software that attempts to treat it as a formal process more like traditional engineering than the craft that many programmers believe it is. We talk of crafting an application, refining and polishing it, as if it were a wooden sculpture, not a series of logic instructions. The problem here is that you cannot engineer art. Programming falls somewhere between an art and a science.

Programming - Art or Engineering?

There has always been considerable debate about the nature of programming. If bridges were designed like software then there would be a lot of ferries operating. You can't have a second go if a bridge fails. That's the argument that the Software Engineering proponents put forward.