You can learn to clean teeth without several years of intense schooling, you cannot learn peridontal surgery in that time, nor by "practice", in a reasonable amount of time or without losing a few patients.
What is interesting to me is that we have gone from having computers go from giant obscure machines in room, leased by large corporations, to having them all over the place in your house. There is a gradation of expertise and capability as there are with cars or other complex systems. From 'tinkerer' (usually a hobbyist) to 'mechanic' (who earns money adjusting and fixing) to 'engineer' (who earns money designing from scratch). They also come with different financial liabilities.
And that last bit is something that computers have largely avoided by consistently disclaiming all warranties. When that changes, and programmers (or their employers) are held liable for the incidental or consequential damage caused by their bugs, you will see a much stricter code for hiring and employing people who write code that runs on other people computers.
> When that changes, and programmers (or their employers) are held liable for the incidental or consequential damage caused by their bugs
In a way, employers already are - when selling a product, the contract will define SLA and if that product doesn't "live up to expectations", then fines or other penalties will be used against the seller.
Also I don't think creating a good bug-free product is a matter of good programmers, as it is a matter of good testers. While both are obviously important, bugs will always happen and it is up to the test process (i.e. it's up to the management to design proper process) to catch as many of them as possible.
> And that last bit is something that computers have largely avoided by consistently disclaiming all warranties. When that changes, and programmers (or their employers) are held liable for the incidental or consequential damage caused by their bugs, you will see a much stricter code for hiring and employing people who write code that runs on other people computers.
My understanding is that life-critical systems have a pretty high bar today.
(Also, since we're on the topic - what do you think of having some level of Professional Association ala the Bar or the Professional Engineering association)
> (Also, since we're on the topic - what do you think of having some level of Professional Association ala the Bar or the Professional Engineering association)
I'll be interested in comparing defect rates between Professional Association members and non-members, and in how long such comparisons remain legal and not covered by NDAs and professional codes of silence.
If every programmer has to join, we've just killed the field.
