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The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

codemanship.co.uk

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Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#81

Post by bmj »

walshemj wrote: post #74
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that you don't need to be chartered professional software engineer to get virtually any programming job. That isn't true for other engineering professions. Most civil engineers are PEs and they often have to be to do their jobs legally. Mechanical engineers are often PEs. Electrical engineers doing electronics often don't bother (as it isn't legally required for most work) but EEs doing line-voltage and…

Not really I worked at a top 5 civil consultancy and the majority of engineers where not chartered it takes quite a few years of professional work to achieve that status. and its more about "who you know not what you know" to quote my dad

I am not an engineer, but have a good friend who is an engineer doing nuclear reaction cooling systems. He worked in the industry for close to ten years before getting his PE, and only did it because his employer asked him to (I believe it helped them get a contract). Based on my conversations with other engineers, other industries (ME, EE, CE) seem to operate in the same way--some employers don't require the exam at all, others may push to have employees take it within some period of time after hire.

Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#82

Post by c--misura »

I'm sorry, but this sounds like sour grapes. If you build software, you're an exogenic source of that erosion too. You've created tools that have made it easier for the next person to contribute. This practice makes software development unique and exciting. There are plenty of competent and incompetent engineers and self-taught developers alike. The currency of expertise is not exclusive to post-secondary accredited programmers. It's earned with results and hard work.

Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#83

Post by pessimizer »

declan wrote: post #63
pessimizer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What exactly do you understand under freebies [for 100y+ prof org members]? Doctors, Lawyers, Realtors, etc. have written 90% of the state laws that they are governed under, and most of the federal ones. They've protected themselves against foreign competition, and shielded themselves against liability.

Not only foreign competition, but domestic competition as well. This is how successful cartels operate. A reasonable amount of lawyering is filling out forms that a 30-year veteran paralegal could do better than someone who just graduated from law school. A physician friend is alarmed by the rise of nurse practitioners, who are perfectly able to diagnose and prescribe medicine for routine ailments. Realtors have gone…

>Realtors have gone further by trademarking the very term(TM)

It's even more than that: the NAR actually made up the term, so why wouldn't they have it as a trademark? Of course, that makes it a little difficult to be a non-Realtor real estate agent.

Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#84

Post by pessimizer »

rayiner wrote: post #75
pessimizer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the benefits of being unprofessional, I guess, is that the products of our labor are generally considered products of the corporation we work for rather than us as individuals. Google, SAP, etc. get sued all the time, though.

Google, SAP, etc, get sued for things like breach of contract, patent infringement, etc. A lawyer or doctor can get sued for his or her work not meeting the expected standard. Imagine the following bug: a variable can take on values of RED, GREEN, and BLUE. You write a switch statement that fails to consider BLUE. Your product crashes, causing your user $5 million in business losses. You get sued for software malprac…

Perfect case for how professionalism protects clients. We'd all have to carry insurance for that.

Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#85

Post by gamblor956 »

maratd wrote: post #46
pessimizer wrote: post #11

Were we ever considered professionals? There's no test - all you have to do to be a software developer is declare yourself to be one. There's no overarching professional organization or boards, therefore incompetents aren't de-certified and national lobbying isn't coherent. In fact, the largest companies that we work for are frequently lobbying for things that programmers don't support, or actively damage our interes…

> There's no overarching professional organization or boards, therefore incompetents aren't de-certified and national lobbying isn't coherent. Incompetents are rarely de-certified in professions that have what are effectively guilds. How nutty do you have to be to appreciate a holdover from the middle ages? In fact, it is usually the incompetents who seek the protection of guilds and unions. Without them, where would…

Lawyers, doctors, and engineers are all required to pass tests before they can practice. They prove their competence before they can even begin working in the field. Furthermore, they are required to take continuing education classes for the duration of their professional careers. Finally, and probably most importantly, professional are subject to fiduciary obligations to their clients that require a minimum standard of professional conduct--if they mess up, they can (and do) get sued for malpractice.

OTOH, apparently programmers can call themselves programmers after a 6 week course in [any random language] even if they only have the barest understanding of what they're doing. Programmers aren't responsible for their mistakes--if they mess up, the client's option is to pay for someone to fix it with no option for recompense.

Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#86

Post by mattgreenrocks »

arethuza wrote: post #24
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #18

Why do developers resist being professionalized? Are we really all so naive to think that the world will grovel at our feet for the rest of time? Fact is, it's extremely likely you've been taken advantage of, financially at some point, for your skills. It's an ugly reality, but I'm betting it has happened to a lot of people, or is happening. There are people who love nothing more than to take advantage of information…

"I'm having a hard time thinking of any downsides to professionalizing" Well, if you are a real professional then a complaint can result in your being struck off and it being legally impossible for you to work in that area again. I really don't see how (or indeed why) that model could be applied to general software development or why it would be in any way desirable. NB: It might be applicable in very small niche are…

Good point, but I'd be surprised if this happened for no good reason. I dislike the probability of it happening, of course, but don't really sweat it.

Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#87

Post by ForHackernews »

gamblor956 wrote: post #85
maratd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no overarching professional organization or boards, therefore incompetents aren't de-certified and national lobbying isn't coherent. Incompetents are rarely de-certified in professions that have what are effectively guilds. How nutty do you have to be to appreciate a holdover from the middle ages? In fact, it is usually the incompetents who seek the protection of guilds and unions. Without them, where would…

Lawyers, doctors, and engineers are all required to pass tests before they can practice. They prove their competence before they can even begin working in the field. Furthermore, they are required to take continuing education classes for the duration of their professional careers. Finally, and probably most importantly, professional are subject to fiduciary obligations to their clients that require a minimum standard…

I agree with this. Until you can sue software developers for malpractice, they're not professionals.

Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#88

Post by potatolicious »

bmj wrote: post #79
pessimizer wrote: post #11

Were we ever considered professionals? There's no test - all you have to do to be a software developer is declare yourself to be one. There's no overarching professional organization or boards, therefore incompetents aren't de-certified and national lobbying isn't coherent. In fact, the largest companies that we work for are frequently lobbying for things that programmers don't support, or actively damage our interes…

There's no test - all you have to do to be a software developer is declare yourself to be one. There's no overarching professional organization or boards, therefore incompetents aren't de-certified and national lobbying isn't coherent. And how does testing work? Do you do language-specific tests? Or general CS knowledge tests? And how do CS-knowledge tests apply to HTML/CSS slingers? Or are they not "programmers?" An…

None of the above. If you look at professional self-regulation in traditional engineering, the focus isn't on competence. There is usually a very mild verification of basic fundamentals. In our world that'd probably translate into "what is an array"?

The bulk of accreditation/certification in this context is not a guarantee of your competence, but a guarantee of your professionalism, and to set you up in a system where unprofessional conduct can be punished, and integrity enforced.

The intent of this sort of regulation isn't to make sure everyone is an amazing programmer, but rather that they will operate above-board, be reliable and trustworthy, and recognize the limitations of their own abilities.

The market, via salaries and benefits, will sort out people by ability. The intent here is instead to establish safeties for the demand-side such that they can hire with relative peace of mind, knowing that even if the person sucks at programming, they won't abscond with your codebase, engage in conflicts of interest, etc. And if they do, that there is a strong enough enforcement arm that provides both deterrence and retribution. It is also intended to protect practitioners by guaranteeing that the people investigating and hearing claims of malfeasance are actually skilled enough in the craft to fairly evaluate the claims.

Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#89

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #57
pessimizer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What exactly do you understand under freebies [for 100y+ prof org members]? Doctors, Lawyers, Realtors, etc. have written 90% of the state laws that they are governed under, and most of the federal ones. They've protected themselves against foreign competition, and shielded themselves against liability.

Without necessarily disagreeing with your point, it's interesting to note that software developers bear almost zero liability in practice for all the buggy software they write, while even big name law firms get sued, and lose, regularly on malpractice claims. If Microsoft was as "protected" from malpractice as lawyers are, they would've been sued out of existence for Windows 95/98/ME.

It's this thought that boils my blood when software developers pretend to be oppressed by the music industry.

Re: The Erosion Of The Status Of Software Developers As Professionals

#90

Post by vonmoltke »

gamblor956 wrote: post #85
maratd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no overarching professional organization or boards, therefore incompetents aren't de-certified and national lobbying isn't coherent. Incompetents are rarely de-certified in professions that have what are effectively guilds. How nutty do you have to be to appreciate a holdover from the middle ages? In fact, it is usually the incompetents who seek the protection of guilds and unions. Without them, where would…

Lawyers, doctors, and engineers are all required to pass tests before they can practice. They prove their competence before they can even begin working in the field. Furthermore, they are required to take continuing education classes for the duration of their professional careers. Finally, and probably most importantly, professional are subject to fiduciary obligations to their clients that require a minimum standard…

> Lawyers, doctors, and engineers are all required to pass tests before they can practice.

Nitpick: Until they can practice on their own. They need to practice under supervision for a certain period of time before they can even take the final tests or otherwise receive final certification.

Also, engineers have the "industrial exemption". In most cases, if you work for a company (and thus do not provide services directly to the public) you do not require a license.

> Finally, and probably most importantly, professional are subject to fiduciary obligations to their clients that require a minimum standard of professional conduct--if they mess up, they can (and do) get sued for malpractice.

This I have an issue with; are you claiming that no one who works for a company is a professional? That to be considered a professional you must offer your services directly to the public?

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