The plight of software engineers: An examination of people who will have the whole world at their fingertips

Those of you now preparing to be software engineers will be the architects of computer systems which will profoundly influence life in the early twenty-first century. You will face challenges as large as those that brought us railroads, airplanes, and space travel. And as in all engineering disciplines, acceptable trade-offs will have to be made among economic factors, the laws of nature, and concern for safe and practical end results.