This right here is the difference between conventional engineering disciplines where designs require a Stamp from an Engineer of Record who takes on personal responsibility in the event of design failures vs. the current discipline of software engineering.
There's a big difference between a software developer and a software engineer, and I think that difference should be codified with a licensure and a stamp like it is in every other engineering field in the states.
Software like this ought to require a stamp.
A decent analogy is the environmental work I've done. When we come up with solutions and mitigations to environmental problems, like software, we can't always predict the result because of the complexities involved. So we stamp a design, but we, or the agencies responsible for allowing the project often specify additional monitoring or other stipulations with very specific performance guidelines. It's a flexible system and possible to adapt to, but there are real consequences and fines when targets aren't met. When bad things happen, the specifics of what went wrong and why are very relevant and the engineer may be to blame, or the owner/site manager, or the contractor who did the work, or sometimes no one is to be blamed but the agencies are able to say: "Hey this isn't working and needs to be addressed, do it by this date or else."
In engineering, there's an enormous amount of public trust given to engineered designs. The engineer takes personal responsibility for that public trust that a building or bridge isn't going to fall down. And if you're negligent, it's a BFD.
Given the current level of public trust that we are putting into software systems, it's crazy to me that we haven't adopted a similar system.
