Subj : Re: Are programmers like this in the real world? To : comp.programming From : Randy Howard Date : Thu Jul 28 2005 02:23 am Chris Sonnack wrote (in article ): >> ...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. Anytime one person has responsibility for code that can kill someone, lack of QA plays a HUGE role, especially when the programmer has left the picture. The notion that any programmer, no matter how competent, should be solely responsible for code like that is fundamentally flawed. >> 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 think the reason is there is no demand for it. Cynically, not enough software development has the potential for killing people to make it a priority to avoid it. :-( > I imagine > that when medicine and law were infant industries, they also had a > similarly varied range of able and not able practitioners. You might argue they still do, if you consider the entire planet, instead of just those that can still get insurance in the US. Let me know how comfortable you would be getting a heart bypass performed in India, then get back to me. :-) >> 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. Given the number of people willing to burn "co-pay" money on stupid doctor visits, I'm not sure this is a bad idea. 90% of the doctor visits are probably unnecessary. Much as maybe 60-70% of software development work really could be done by a geeky high school kid. Probably because there is an incredible amount of wheel reinvention going on over silly software apps. This is one area that I think open source helps in. Lot less need to reinvent something on the cheap to avoid having to pay for a commercial version as the open source software space gets filled out. I suspect this has a lot more to do with job problems in the US than people give credit to, preferring to blame it on outsourcing. There is a lot less custom software being written by hired guns now that so much free stuff is available. It might not be exactly what somebody wants, but it is probably close enough when the cost is zero. > We just have the "misfortune" to work in an infant industry. Having benefitted from many of the side-effects of working in an infant (i.e. high-growth) industry, I feel quite fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time. Those just now showing up are those that will be suffering. (Yeah, I know I moved the goalposts a bit there.) -- Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR) .