There are other aspects to programming quality that matter to outsiders more than idiomatic purity and The Latest Framework. These are the kinds of things whic

There are other aspects to programming quality that matter to outsiders more than idiomatic purity and The Latest Framework. These are the kinds of things which in other fields, real engineering, are covered by codes. The security of the system, whether it is engineered to deliver the uptime needed for its intended use, technical aspects of disaster recovery. These our equivalent of the kind of thing real engineers get sued for. Krebbs security blog reported cases where developers served medical records on the web without even enforcing basic authentication, and it will be the company not the developers who pay the fine (if any). Very often, we come to a program which encodes complex business logic which is not understandable and implements systems not written down. I once worked with a financial services company who had no understanding of their pricing algorithm due to staff turnover and total lack of documentation or readable code. Should it be legal to deliver work of that quality? Framing code craftsmanship as equivalent to these kinds of duties is strange, because lawyers might be taught writing or speaking skill but it doesn't enter into their professional registration. That does not mean it isn't important, or an important thing to consider at hiring time, it's just apples and oranges. I think that, especially where we work on systems that can deeply impact peoples lives, the viability of business, or safety, we need something better than 'has worked on ISO x compliant systems' on a job spec. We need professional registration and the ability to strike engineers off if they are found not to be following an enforced code.