Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is that the only way to validate my knowledge?
It isn't, but then one isn't entitled to call themselves Engineer, just like a village "doctor" isn't one. There is no proof that the person in question would fair well in all domains that get taught during 5 years of engineering school, and follow up experience on the field, without a proper assessment from the engineer board.
If doctors were interviewed like software developers
121–128 of 128 posts
Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers
#122Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't, but then one isn't entitled to call themselves Engineer, just like a village "doctor" isn't one. There is no proof that the person in question would fair well in all domains that get taught during 5 years of engineering school, and follow up experience on the field, without a proper assessment from the engineer board.
And what makes "assessment from the engineer board" more relevant proof than any other?
The assessment proves that one actually has the skills that are expected from any Software Engineer to fulfill the society expectations, technical, moral and ethical responsibilities, from the profession.
Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Left up to private enterprise they will set their standards to the lowest they can get away with to maximize profits and reduce the time to market.
So the makers of Candy Krush should ban heap allocation and dynamic memory allocation and perform rigid static analysis on all the code they ship?
Obviously software written for use in medical devices and banking systems should be held to a higher standard, but the same can be said for other licensed professions. A plumber installing a fire suppression system in a 50 story high-rise would similarly have their work held to a higher standard than someone setting up a rain barrel for their garden.
Personally I find the quality and vetting process of software designed to be installed on the same device that most people use to manage their online banking and carry on their most intimate conversations (often using said software) to be so low as to be considered criminally negligent by the standards of any other respectably industry.
Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what makes "assessment from the engineer board" more relevant proof than any other?
I guess you are happy to go to anyone that calls themselves doctor as well, or buy a house from someone that has learned to put bricks together during weekends. The assessment proves that one actually has the skills that are expected from any Software Engineer to fulfill the society expectations, technical, moral and ethical responsibilities, from the profession.
Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somehow I feel like you're right, but when I think about it I can't really think of why. What is actually different? The only major distinction I can come up with is that part of a job interview is seeing if you fit well with the culture of the company.
School interviews and licensing exams stop early in your career.
Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a solved problem per our tax laws. Just because you write code that runs on a server in another state, doesn't mean you pay the taxes in that state.
Different states have dramatically different taxes. Some states have no income taxes. So in one sense, it's a "solved problem", with the solution being that licensing requirements would be dramatically different based on locality, but in the sense that people want — a uniform standard for hiring software developers — it's not solved at all.
Exact same thing can be said about the hiring process in general. Taxes and employment legal contracts vary from state to state. I am sure employers would love a single contract, no matter where they hire an individual, but that is not currently the case.
Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
To GP's point, nobody died in that disaster. A much better example would have been the Therac-25: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
These two examples are interesting. They're both cases where what was being created was a system where software was an important component, as opposed to the software written by the vast majority of us where the hardware components of the system are always the same (monitor, keyboard, etc.) This is the same distinction in Diamond v Diehr for when software might be included in a patent. I always thought the US Supreme…