Subj : Re: Are programmers like this in the real world? To : comp.programming From : Chris Sonnack Date : Wed Jul 27 2005 07:01 pm Randy Howard writes: >>> Because computers are such common objects these days, I believe that >>> the worth of the work of programmers has been devalued. >> >> It's got to be more than that. Human bodies are even more common than >> computers, but we don't devalue the work of doctors. > > We want to, everyone complains about the cost of health care, > (nevermind *why* it is so expensive). For obvious reasons, it's > difficult to outsource your medical care to some 'doctor' in a > third-world country. Reminds me of a Carlin joke (paraphrased): > "somewhere today, some poor guy has an appointment with the > worst doctor on the planet". Exactly. I've used that joke often when talking about this (even here a couple times, I believe). The thing medical school *attempts* to do is insure that the worst doctor will still "do no harm." >> I suspect it's largely due to the infancy of this industry combined >> with the fact that everyone knows some nine-year-old who "programs". > > Well, we use the term "program" far, far too loosely. Yes, as do the people who perceive us "programmers". >> I believe that, as the industry matures, we'll recognize two things. >> >> 1. Programming will always be hard, because programming *IS* hard. > > Some is, some isn't, using current accepted meanings for the > term. Agreed. >> 2. Good programmers are the intellectual equals of doctors and lawyers >> on many counts: >> * amount of study required to become skilled, >> * amount of continued study to remain skilled, >> * need to manage lots of information about a problem, >> * largeness of the field resulting in specialties, >> * required skills of research and self-learning, >> * need to break new ground in solving a problem, >> * interconnectedness of problem/solution domains, >> * and so on. > > The one item missing, that separates the two groups notably... Currently! > ...is responsibility for screwups within their work output. When > real "professional programmers" (or whatever they are called) take > out malpractice insurance we may see the bar raised, if by > nobody other than the insurance carriers. It may take that, and perhaps it should. I've been re-reading a long article about the Therac-25 software bug that killed several people (mid 80s). The software was apparently mostly the work of one, long gone, programmer, although lack of company QA also played a big role. > There is no current generally useful certification that *proves* > a programmer is competent akin to being a doctor or passing a > bar exam. Right. I'm saying I think that's because we haven't recognized that such a thing is a good idea for professional programmers. I imagine that when medicine and law were infant industries, they also had a similarly varied range of able and not able practitioners. > The problem is, there are several orders of magnitude more jobs > available for wannabes than pros. Not unlike how there are still "witch doctors"... various folks pushing homeopathic remedies of questionable value and lots and lots of folks willing to buy that stuff rather than pursue the harder, more expensive courses of medical practice. > I suspect that it will gradually balance itself out, but will > take a long time to do so, with a few whipsaws in both > directions along the way before it stabilizes. Agreed. Probably won't happen in my lifetime. And I imagine law and medicine passed through similar stages. We just have the "misfortune" to work in an infant industry. -- |_ CJSonnack _____________| How's my programming? | |_ http://www.Sonnack.com/ ___________________| Call: 1-800-DEV-NULL | |_____________________________________________|_______________________| .