Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How would you set up national certification for software engineers?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 79 posts

Re: Ask HN: How would you set up national certification for software engineers?

#21

Post by antaviana »

diafygi wrote: post #10

Do what they do for all other engineering fields: require a certified engineer sign off on a product delivered to a regulated entity, and be able to hold that engineer criminally liable if someone comes to harm from the product they signed off on. The quality of software for lolzcat apps could remain shitty, but the quality of firmware for FCC approval would go way up. In order for quality to increase for infrastruct…

That's an excellent way for software to be 100x more expensive and controlled by a cartel of incumbents. We could also send to jail those users who don't RTFM.

Re: Ask HN: How would you set up national certification for software engineers?

#22

Post by mikekchar »

I would prefer an apprenticeship system. Possibly have several levels. To get to the next level you would have to create an independent project that you submit to the committee. The committee would review it and then interview you. This would culminate in a master-level project at which point you would be allowed to refer to yourself as a "master programmer".

As others have said, there are already engineering societies and you can become a professional/certified engineer but there is not really much demand at the moment. I'd really prefer trying to set up a parallel system that achieves other goals (improving the overall ability of programmers).

Re: Ask HN: How would you set up national certification for software engineers?

#23

Post by fsloth »

watwut wrote: post #20

I would not. As annoying as competition with a lot of people is, it is better then industry wide gatekeeper and resulting politics. IMO, if you think you have good test to distinguish between good and bad, build a company around it.

A certification is a not a stamp of quality. It's a social demarcation line.

Re: Ask HN: How would you set up national certification for software engineers?

#24

Post by nl »

leonth wrote: post #15
walshemj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case why is Jeff Sessions still a lawyer? any reasonable system would have debared him by now.

I have no idea who Jeff Sessions is, but I am sure that the rule tries to make sure that these kind of situations are the exception.

Jeff Sessions is the current Attorney General of the United States of America.

It was a fairly controversial appointment.

I'm not entirely sure what specifically the poster thought he should have been disbarred for, but a number of his views have made it easy to argue about the quality of service he has given.

Re: Ask HN: How would you set up national certification for software engineers?

#25

Post by fsloth »

mikekchar wrote: post #22

I would prefer an apprenticeship system. Possibly have several levels. To get to the next level you would have to create an independent project that you submit to the committee. The committee would review it and then interview you. This would culminate in a master-level project at which point you would be allowed to refer to yourself as a "master programmer". As others have said, there are already engineering societi…

Generally these sort of systems are in place to maintain a high price of labor. As demand exceeds supply it's unlikely there is much need for this process in the near future. If there was more supply than need, then people would quickly pine for a certification and start fighting to restrict employment of non-certified programmers.

Re: Ask HN: How would you set up national certification for software engineers?

#26

Post by fsloth »

A professional certificate is not a quality grading tool, it's a pricing mechanism.

Thus the demand for the certification needs to come from the selfish needs of the certified profession.

First requirement is that there is an oversupply of qualified candidates. As the demands for software engineers shows no signs of abating I would claim attaining this first requirement would be quite hard. On the other hand, if supply of eligible candidates exceeded demand we would have a certification program done almost by itself - unless the big tech incumbents fought terribly against it, of course.

Re: Ask HN: How would you set up national certification for software engineers?

#27

Post by elmigranto »

kobeya wrote: post #7

Why would you want to do that?

One thing that comes to mind is job interviews. When you apply to, say, a surgeon opening, certification and previous job experience is enough, no one asks you to perform homework surgery or list all the bones in human body.
Post reply on HN