Peter Miller wrote:
As a profession, we have two choices: 1. start licensing and accrediting ourselves, with a structure we can live with, OR 2. wait for Some Really Bad Shit to happen, with a software defect as the root cause, and have the politicians force something upon us... something baroque, bureaucratic and onerous.
That assumes that most people in computing do tasks akin to engineering. I think that's an affectation. It seems to me that most people I meet in computing do tasks akin to motor mechanics and light regulation akin to motor mechanics is what is needed. Such an analogy also recognises that there is a range of experience, a range of employers, and even people who prefer to fix their own car. But anyway the real problem is that computers are a tool. By insisting on accreditation you are saying that people can't use the tool without a 3-4 year education. At the moment I'm surrounded by physicists and astronomers -- let me float the idea that they shouldn't program computers.... And it's not like you can't exempt their systems from some accreditation scheme. Telescopes are essentially huge lumps of moving metal and they can readily kill. Trying to distinguish "user" from "programmer" is also dire. If a Excel macro a program? And if you forbid the use of Java by the unwashed, do you then simply get systems written in Excel macros? Cheers, Glen -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
