NYCPHP Meetup

[Kristina Anderson]

For all intents and purposes, a software engineer/application developer 
must have a bachelor's degree of some sort, and certainly after 10 
years of doing this, I consider that it takes considerable training and 
specialized study to be reasonably good.

My question to you Urb:  Would you consider me, a person with a non-CS 
university degree (B.A.), and 10 years of actual paid experience, to 
be "self taught" or merely "non traditionally formally educated"...?
It's true that the skills to be a good programmer were learned "in the 
field" and not in a classroom but isn't that true of everyone?  And to 
say "self taught" is to really underestimate the contributions of very 
brilliant people I have learned from over the years including one Dr. 
Jerry A. who posts to this list, and many others.

I would sure welcome a NYS professional license for software developers 
and want to know would anyone else want to get active on that?  It 
could require a certain number of years of actual paid experience and a 
test and whatever else...I'm 100% in favor of this if it helps us get 
more respect.  As Urb pointed out, other types of engineers do have 
licensing.  

(My previous polemic having been somewhat out of place because we were 
talking about a "webmaster test" -- but it's one thing if you are 
looking for someone who can hand code a little HTML...that's not 
necessarily a "profession" -- but if you are looking for someone who 
can administer your LAMP environment AND design & develop your LAMP 
applications then you are looking for someone with a sh*tload of 
experience and broad based experience at that...you are looking for a 
LAMP engineer not a "webmaster".  Calling this person a "webmaster" 
with all those skills is another way of keeping respect, and pay 
scales, down.)

My point having been that (no offense to the lawyers out there) it 
takes WAY MORE BRAINS to design & develop working code than it does to 
write a divorce complaint or a commercial lease -- which is what most 
lawyers do -- most of them are not litigation experts who deal with 
arcane Supreme Court decisions and get on Court TV -- and by the same 
token most software developers are not dealing with the highest, most 
arcane levels of software (whatever that might be deemed to be).

But it is a profession requiring a 4 year degree (de facto) and 
CONSIDERABLE training and specialized education...!!

> 
> >>  By definition, programming and website design is not a
> >>profession.
> >
> >Really? What specifically is that definition?
> 
> profession: "An occupation, such as law, medicine, or engineering, 
> that requires considerable training
> and specialized study"
> 
> Houghton Mifflin Dictionary.
> 
> Even an engineer must have a professional engineering (PE) 
> designation to perform certain types of design.
> I don't have a problem with a self taught programmers, I've known 
> some great ones, however, a field having
> a large number of practitioners without formal training is a trade 
> not a profession. A profession is also
> self-regulated.
> 
> It's another thread but, should there be certification available for 
> programmers and web designers? If we
> ever want to be considered a profession, that's the first step. I was 
> in the stock brokerage business when
> the designation Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) first came into 
> being. It was extraordinarily difficult
> and it took almost two years after the announcement before the first 
> designation were awarded. It required
> two 8 hour day testing sessions. It made a huge difference in the 
> industry and these days you will not get
> a senior level job in a research department without a CFA. Same thing 
> happened with Chartered Financial
> Planner (CFP).
> 
> I'm unsure of the procedure, but how/when does one change the subject 
> when we have drifted into a new
> area?
> 
> 
> Urb
> 
> Dr. Urban A. LeJeune, President
> E-Government.com
> 609-294-0320  800-204-9545
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> E-Government.com lowers you costs while increasing your expectations.
> 
> 
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