Engineers are highly trained professionals who apply scientific methods to solve practical problems, at least that's what I think of when I hear the term.
I am no engineer, but if I was an engineer, I would be a little pissed off that every other monkey who fixes computers or throws together websites calls himself an "engineer".
When it comes to "software engineering", I think that the term needs to be abandoned, in place of a better description (although to be fair, most of the professional programmers I've met call themselves "developers" rather than "engineers").
Post inspired by this (rather dense) article.
