The intern beside me just called me to solve an error in PHP.

He wrote:
for($slides as $s){
}

The PHP error message wasn't quite clear:
Fatal error: expected ';' on line 84

How could possibly an intern who's becoming an engineer in IT make such mistake and lose like 1h on an error like that? I even attends one of the best universities in the country

PS:
I know engineers aren't supposed to code, but he's been coding for the past month in PHP and was here just to do that

Uhm..... Im sorry but what

@mkdirLuci4 Damn I made a mistake... HE's attending university, I don't

@ZioCain "engineers aren't supposed to code" huh?

@RememberMe and construction workers are not supposed to build.
Doctors and nurses arent supposed to make sick people feel better.

Maybe he did python before php. You know those guys don’t know what a “;” is right 😏

Also the error message dont really explain the real problem. He should've used "foreach" not "for"

There is cultural misconception here. For those that don't know, in Italy an engineer is the person who has engineering title (ZioCain is from there), legally recognised and given by an university and enforced by Engineering Fellowship (Ordine degli Ingegneri). You cannot randomly call yourself an engineer, that would be against the law. So, as result, there is no exact translation of term Software Engineer. Actually there is no legally recognised Software Engineering title. The closest one is Computer Engineer (in italian: Ingegnere Informatico) which is not-only-software-engineer. If you work as Software Engineer but have Computer Science degree, calling yourself Engineer and working under such title would be a felony. Computer Scientist and Software Engineer would be best translated as: Informatico. You can also use Developer (Sviluppatore) or Programmer (Programmatore) titles interchangeable. 1/3

Another misconception, italian one this time, is that Computer Engineers are going to be some kind of special Software Engineers, almost wizards with superpowers, that can be hired as Sotware Architects or as high rank techies. That means they will never code because they are too good for this. Of course that's bullsh*t but universities still encourage this mindset. Most of the time you'll end up as underpaid software developer in small company with self taught programmers that might be better coders that you. The employer would ask you:"Why don't you have a PhD?" when your job can be done by a well trained monkey. 2/3

@ZioCain I don't buy it. Every university claims that it's the best or one of the best. But in any case, juniors do stupid mistakes. That IS normal. You're overreacting. 3/3

@shasha he comes from the Politecnico di Milano, which is among the best european, y'know?

@C0D4 no... he just had java and PHP lessons

@RememberMe yeah, here in Italy if you want to code you just go for IT, but engineers just make design software, they don't make it, test it or whatever

@shasha so if you are, according to an international defined standard a software engineer you are not an software engineer in Italia?

That seems weird to me, engineer titles are only for people who have finished at least a bachelor education (also declared internationaly). But software engineers are people with at least 4 years of software development experience on a bachelor level.
Ive never done a bachelor but Ive got 5 years experience on a bachelor level, legally I can call myself engineer.
But if I put that on a budiness card and go to italy I can get arrested or something?

@ZioCain that's not exactly true. It is general misconception but even Italian Engineers do write code, test it and so on. It's just more hardware - software integration specialist than Software Engineer. Trust me, I'm an engineer :D (in Italy too).

@Codex404 I'm sorry but there is no such thing as uniquely defined standard for engineers. Term engineer, in English, is very broad and there is a big difference between common use of the term and legally recognised one. Italy has a very well regulated terminology so an engineer is only licensed engineer. One common term is technic (tecnico) for unlicensed engineers. Russia has very similar system, with few level of licensing but people sometimes abuse these terms and call any technical staff engineer. 1/2

Your experience doesn't matter, only your licence. If you put Software Engineer on your buisness card, well, nothing will happen as no one will care. Translation from English to Italian would get rid of the word Engineer anyway. Also, if you're not in some well regulated field, like, let's say avionics, it really doesn't matter as you'll end up as Programmer/Developer no matter what licence you have. It matters only in critical fields, where there is legal responsibility and you're required to have a licence (avionics, stability systems, industrial automation, biomedical, etc). 2/2