Software engineering professionalism

Software engineering professionalism regards software engineering's struggle to be considered as a profession. It was hampered by the common perception that it's merely the application of computer science. The goal of making software engineering into its own profession spurred a great deal of debate about what is a profession.
Currently, software engineering has been granted the distinction of being a designated professional engineering discipline in Texas, in the US, Australia(since 2001), and many provinces in Canada.
To claim to be a profession, software engineering needs to be widely recognized as such. Such things are having undergraduate degrees, licences that are recognized by state governments, their own codes of ethics, and so on are symbols of that recognition.


Examples of Codes of Conduct
The following are examples of Codes of conduct for Professional Engineers. These 2 have been chosen because both jurisdictions have a designation for Professional Software Engineers.
Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia (APEGBC): All members in the association's code of Ethics must ensure that government, the public can rely on BC's professional engineers and Geoscientists to act at all times with fairness, courtesy and good faith to their employers, employee and customers, and to uphold the truth, honesty and trustworthiness, and to safe guard human life and the environment. This is just one of the many ways in which BC’s Professional Engineers and Professional Geoscientists maintain their competitive edge in today’s global marketplace.
Association of Professional Engineers, Geoscientists and Geophysicists of Alberta(APEGGA): Different with British Columbia, the Alberta Government granted self governance to engineers, Geoscientists and geophysicists. All members in the APEGGA have to accept legal and ethical responsibility for the work and to hold the interest of the public and society. The APEGGA is a standards guideline of professional practice to uphold the protection of public interest for engineering, Geoscientists and geophysics in Alberta.
Interesting comments regarding software engineering:
Bill Joy argued that "better software" can only enable its privileged end users, make reality more power-pointy as opposed to more humane, and ultimately run away with itself so that "the future doesn't need us." He openly questioned the goals of software engineering in this respect, asking why it isn't trying to be more ethical rather than more efficient.
Lawrence Lessig argued that computer code can regulate conduct in much the same way as the legal code.

Both of these comments show the express need to think about the consequences of the software being developed, not only in a functional way, but also in how it affects the public and society as a whole.
Overall, due to the youth of software engineering, many of the ethical codes and values have been borrowed from other fields, such as mechanical and civil engineering. However, there are many ethical questions that even these, much older, disciplines have not encountered. Questions about the ethical impact of internet applications, which have a global reach, have never been encountered until recently and other ethical questions are still to be encountered. This means the ethical codes for software engineering are a work in progress, that will change and update as more questions arise.