note
tye
<p>
I feel that much programming should be turned into a real
"engineering" discipline, requiring a license that ensures
that you got an education from an accredited institution,
keep up your education, and take professional responsibility
for the code that you produce.
</p><p>
Then when your boss tries to apply market pressures to you,
you can honestly say "Sorry, I can't let this product be
released because it would be unethical and I could lose my
license."
</p><p>
I'm not saying that coding be illegal without a license, but
that many or perhaps all commercial products require at
least supervision and approval of a licensed coder before
money can be charged for them.
</p><p>
But this will never happen. A good alternative would be to
have a voluntary system where you get a "Good Programming
Seal of Approval" on software that meets some strict
standards. Then many big groups will require this seal on
important code such as the flight controls of commercial
jet liners and things can snow-ball from there.
</p><p>
A common response when I propose this is that the cost and
time of producing software would skyrocket and destroy the
economy.
</p><p>
My response to that is that in my decade of professional
software development, I've spent more time fixing problems
caused by other peoples' code than I have writing my own
code. If the code I got from other companies was of
reasonable quality, I'd have much more time and could spend
that making my software of reasonable quality as well.
</p><p>
So I think this idea would produce an initial slow down but
in the end would make the software industry <em>more</em>
productive (as well as making software suck a lot less).
</p><p>
Last week I mentioned that to my new manager and he said
that this is actually proposed in a well respected book
on software development. I'll throw the title in here when
I find it.
</p>
-
<a href="/index.pl?node=tye&lastnode_id=1072">tye</a>
(but my friends call me "Tye")
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