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I believe the future of this industry lies with us building it into a capital-P profession and all that it entails. I don't buy the O'Hanian view that we shoul

I believe the future of this industry lies with us building it into a capital-P profession and all that it entails. I don't buy the O'Hanian view that we should continue innovating, "without their permission." I don't think software necessarily has to come with the risk of killing people in order for it to cause significant harm. We've seen how innocuous software can cause significant harm to civil liberties and put under-represented people at risk. We've seen how software vulnerabilities put the financial industry and peoples' future at risk. At best we inconvenience a user. At worst... well we don't have to imagine that. I think it's enough that we take some responsibility for what we create into our own hands. We're going to be bad at regulating our industry at first. It may harm startups for a while. However I think it's important for professional software developers to be licensed, projects insured, and liability enforced. How will self-taught developers fit into the system? I don't know... I'm self taught myself. However I am looking towards going back to school and seeing what I need to do to be licensed... there is a government-backed program where I live. I just hope that when the time comes and I stick to my guns that there will be an organization behind me with the power to litigate for my job. Too many times I've been asked to put my professional opinion aside... as it's just an opinion after all... in the name of business/progress/innovation. I'd rather be beholden to the profession than to my employer (and I think many employers are smart enough to realize the benefits of this arrangement).

microcolonel 10y ago
What are you even talking about? Regulating the "software industry" is like regulating the "literature industry". The potential for harm is entirely based on where the product is used. If somebody runs Microsoft Windows XP on the main brake control computer on a high speed train, that is irresponsible. If somebody runs Microsoft Windows XP in a VM to try out Bonzi Buddy one more time, that is hilarious. If you speak a mean letter on stage as a comedy act, that is hilarious. If you send a mean letter to a depressed person, that is irresponsible. If you use computers to retain PII, then it is your managerial responsibility to ensure that the PII is stored responsibly. Just as you have the responsibility not to leave printouts of that PII in public dumpsters, or post them on Bristol Board in the public square. This is a very personal topic to me, because I am being paid handsomely to write software for the financial industry at the age of 19, because I can create massive wealth for them; and if software were a regulated profession, I may never have become a software developer at all. I may have just offed myself after failing in school. >...while hundreds of people have been killed from faulty software during air travel. Notably, some of the points mentioned in the talk referenced in the article are already basically "solved issues". There hasn't been a software-attributed catastrophic aircraft failure in quite a while, and the most recent one we know about was the crash of a pre-production Airbus test aircraft. That aircraft's software hadn't yet passed the standard verification procedures and standards. Every industry has its own priorities and needs, regulating the hard skill will only lower the quality of software developers.
- ihsw 10y ago
  These are excellent points and it correctly shifts the responsibility onto those in decision-making positions. Frankly I think we are well passed the point of no return -- there most definitely is no means to regulate the industry. Hundreds of thousands of businesses across the planet need a steady stream of code pushed out and they all need to keep costs down, there is no legal entity that can reach across the planet to provide necessary legal protection to the ethically inclined. Repeat: there is no legal entity that can reach across international jurisdictions for this. At best we can rally around national voluntary accreditation facilities (eg: Canadian Medical Association, American Medical Association) but it would be difficult because the best of us can simply opt out with little to no personal loss. The world really is held together by duct tape and bailing wire with occasional sections of steel and concrete. I'm sure we are all familiar with this where we try (as hard as we might) to seal the cracks every chance we get.
  - microcolonel 10y ago
    I think the world is better when it's held together with duct tape and bailing wire; because the alternative is politics. Politics is inherently sick, and any chance to avoid it will ultimately save lives, even for something as silly as whether or not to regulate portfolio websites. I think the medical associations have done a bang-up job, and perhaps the software industry could learn a bit from that.
- agentultra 10y ago
  Software has very little in common with literature, so what are you talking about? The regulation I believe is necessary wouldn't require every programmer to be licensed and wouldn't require every commercial project to be insured and signed off by a licensed software engineer. So what would have prevented you from working in your current situation? Nothing. It's no less personal an issue to me. My first programming job came to me when I was 17. I was paid more than either of my parents ever made to do something I liked doing (something I used to get yelled at for spending so much time doing...). I helped make gambling websites in the 90s before there was any regulation of such activities. I had no code of ethics and I probably helped enable more than a few addicts relieve themselves of their future prospects. Had there been a requirement that at least someone working on the team to be a licensed professional then at least someone had to be conscious of what we were doing. Personally I don't trust corporate interested to decide what is ethical. As many programmers here have lamented if they didn't do it someone else would and now we're stuck with an industry whose sole purpose it to circumvent privacy protections in order to track behaviour online and sell it to the highest bidder. Fortunately we do pretty well when writing flight control software. But it's not a good enough system when it comes to web services or trading services. Or a myriad of other things that can cause harm without risking lives. I don't have the answers for how it should work. And as I said I suspect we'll be bad at it for a number of years. But that shouldn't be an excuse for not trying.
ryanmarsh 10y ago
We don't know enough about programming to professionalize it yet. In comparison to the development of civil engineering as a profession we're somewhere around the "don't put big heavy shit on top of small flexible shit and expect to stand up" stage

microcolonel 10y ago

What are you even talking about? Regulating the "software industry" is like regulating the "literature industry". The potential for harm is entirely based on where the product is used. If somebody runs Microsoft Windows XP on the main brake control computer on a high speed train, that is irresponsible. If somebody runs Microsoft Windows XP in a VM to try out Bonzi Buddy one more time, that is hilarious. If you speak a mean letter on stage as a comedy act, that is hilarious. If you send a mean letter to a depressed person, that is irresponsible. If you use computers to retain PII, then it is your managerial responsibility to ensure that the PII is stored responsibly. Just as you have the responsibility not to leave printouts of that PII in public dumpsters, or post them on Bristol Board in the public square. This is a very personal topic to me, because I am being paid handsomely to write software for the financial industry at the age of 19, because I can create massive wealth for them; and if software were a regulated profession, I may never have become a software developer at all. I may have just offed myself after failing in school. >...while hundreds of people have been killed from faulty software during air travel. Notably, some of the points mentioned in the talk referenced in the article are already basically "solved issues". There hasn't been a software-attributed catastrophic aircraft failure in quite a while, and the most recent one we know about was the crash of a pre-production Airbus test aircraft. That aircraft's software hadn't yet passed the standard verification procedures and standards. Every industry has its own priorities and needs, regulating the hard skill will only lower the quality of software developers.

ihsw 10y ago
These are excellent points and it correctly shifts the responsibility onto those in decision-making positions. Frankly I think we are well passed the point of no return -- there most definitely is no means to regulate the industry. Hundreds of thousands of businesses across the planet need a steady stream of code pushed out and they all need to keep costs down, there is no legal entity that can reach across the planet to provide necessary legal protection to the ethically inclined. Repeat: there is no legal entity that can reach across international jurisdictions for this. At best we can rally around national voluntary accreditation facilities (eg: Canadian Medical Association, American Medical Association) but it would be difficult because the best of us can simply opt out with little to no personal loss. The world really is held together by duct tape and bailing wire with occasional sections of steel and concrete. I'm sure we are all familiar with this where we try (as hard as we might) to seal the cracks every chance we get.
- microcolonel 10y ago
  I think the world is better when it's held together with duct tape and bailing wire; because the alternative is politics. Politics is inherently sick, and any chance to avoid it will ultimately save lives, even for something as silly as whether or not to regulate portfolio websites. I think the medical associations have done a bang-up job, and perhaps the software industry could learn a bit from that.
agentultra 10y ago
Software has very little in common with literature, so what are you talking about? The regulation I believe is necessary wouldn't require every programmer to be licensed and wouldn't require every commercial project to be insured and signed off by a licensed software engineer. So what would have prevented you from working in your current situation? Nothing. It's no less personal an issue to me. My first programming job came to me when I was 17. I was paid more than either of my parents ever made to do something I liked doing (something I used to get yelled at for spending so much time doing...). I helped make gambling websites in the 90s before there was any regulation of such activities. I had no code of ethics and I probably helped enable more than a few addicts relieve themselves of their future prospects. Had there been a requirement that at least someone working on the team to be a licensed professional then at least someone had to be conscious of what we were doing. Personally I don't trust corporate interested to decide what is ethical. As many programmers here have lamented if they didn't do it someone else would and now we're stuck with an industry whose sole purpose it to circumvent privacy protections in order to track behaviour online and sell it to the highest bidder. Fortunately we do pretty well when writing flight control software. But it's not a good enough system when it comes to web services or trading services. Or a myriad of other things that can cause harm without risking lives. I don't have the answers for how it should work. And as I said I suspect we'll be bad at it for a number of years. But that shouldn't be an excuse for not trying.

ryanmarsh 10y ago

We don't know enough about programming to professionalize it yet. In comparison to the development of civil engineering as a profession we're somewhere around the "don't put big heavy shit on top of small flexible shit and expect to stand up" stage