We certainly can have such a thing, and exactly that has been discussed for well over a decade (probably much longer, but I'm only so old) in the ACM, among oth

We certainly can have such a thing, and exactly that has been discussed for well over a decade (probably much longer, but I'm only so old) in the ACM, among other organizations. It's a difficult issue. Creating a set of standards and a certification process has a lot of pitfalls. Failing to create such a process has a lot of pitfalls. Knowingly choosing to step into one set of pitfalls over another is never a comfortable choice and people are generally very bad at it until something really, really bad happens that gives a large number of people enough irrational fear of one option to push them toward the other (and they will rabidly and aggressively oppose any discussion of acknowledging or compensating for the pitfalls they're moving toward in that case - they feel entitled to a 'clean' option and they will demand you pretend the option they're going for is that). Rather than compare it to doctors, lawyers, etc, I would compare it to structural and civil engineers. Those are the sorts of regulations we require. If a CEO of a construction company ignores warnings given by one of his structural engineers while building a bridge, that CEO is held responsible for criminal negligence and he is put in a prison for a long time. The same needs to happen for technology company management who cut the development timeline, deprive developers of adequate tools and work environment, and who hire inexperienced development staff simply because they're cheap. Would you like to drive across a bridge if you knew the company operated the way tech companies operate? Viewing their engineers as a cost center to be reduced, as little more than spoiled typists whose technical concerns are always viewed as unimportant in the face of business goals, crammed into office spaces proven by over 1000 studies to damage productivity, and constantly pressured to rush through everything in defiance of basic biological fact that human beings are not capable of extended periods of mental exertion especially in the face of constant interruption? Would it make you more or less confident in that bridge if there were court precedent for companies resulting in peoples deaths being let off without punishment with such practices? That's the situation we're in.