Are We Really Engineers? by Hillel Wayne
Shares rank 28 of 60 articles by recommenders
A well-researched article series asking whether software development is really engineering. Readers found it educational and its conclusion surprising. No criticisms were recorded.
A well-researched article series asking whether software development is really engineering. Readers found it educational and its conclusion surprising. No criticisms were recorded.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Addresses whether programming counts as engineering
“The conclusion was that yes, a lot of what we do as software engineers is engineering.”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Context engineering” “Great series about whether programming is “engineering” or not”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Becoming a compiler engineer” Well-researched writing
“Hillel Wayne wrote a really excellent well researched article about software engineering”
Comment from 28 Oct 2026 in “Kentucky man becomes the first humanist granted religious exemption from AI” “Hillel Wayne addresses well”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “I no longer care to work on any Ruby gems so I've archived all my repositories” Educational and surprising insights
“It really surprised me when I read it first time!”
Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Don't call yourself an artisanal programmer” “very educational, especially part 1”
Comment from 22 Feb 2026 in “When Code is Free, Why is Claude is an Electron app?”
Other articles people recommend
The four most recommended other articles, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Programming as Theory Buildingby Peter Naur | 32 | 0 | 100% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Ur-Fascismby Umberto Eco | 18 | 2 | 90% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Politics and the English Languageby George Orwell | 14 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | Approved |
| The Grug Brained Developer by Carson Gross | 13 | 1 | 93% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Are We Really Engineers? by Hillel WayneThis page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
6 of the 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Hillel Wayne wrote a really excellent well researched article about software engineering”
“Hillel Wayne addresses well”
“It really surprised me when I read it first time!”
“very educational, especially part 1”
“Great series about whether programming is “engineering” or not”
“The conclusion was that yes, a lot of what we do as software engineers is engineering.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.