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I suspect I will get some flack for this, but programming is a trade skill. Currently, software development is completely unregulated, requires no formal educa

I suspect I will get some flack for this, but programming is a trade skill. Currently, software development is completely unregulated, requires no formal education or credentials, and is solely assessed on experienced. That said software development has far more in common with iron working, mechanics, music performance, and construction than it does something like law, medicine, or real estate. I know people like to talk up their profession with their high priced education and the trappings of the fancy corporate environments. Honestly, most software developers are little more than skilled button pushers. Very few of the people paid to write software are computer scientists, actually use or benefit from any form of graduate education, or are inventing new concepts in software.

emidln 9y ago
The only difference between law and programming is a regulation forcing you to join a trade association which imposes a formal test for admittance prior to practicing law. Technical knowledge of dejure laws (formally passed), regulations (explicitly stated, but under the license of a law where they are given effect), defacto laws (rulings or case law), and their interplay is extremely similar to knowledge of RFCs, APIs, tooling systems, and their interplay.
- mieseratte 9y ago
  One could make superficial comparisons between just about any career, from law and medicine to tradesman. Every job requires domain specific knowledge, how things interact, etc. The application of that knowledge is how and why things are different. I actually asked a friend of mine, programmer-turned-lawyer, how similar the two were based off your premise. To him, there are completely unrelated skill sets that differentiate the two. I'm sure some subset of lawyers overlaps with what some subset of software engineers do, generically speaking, but a practicing lawyer winning cases and a software engineer actually writing code are very different beasts.

emidln 9y ago

The only difference between law and programming is a regulation forcing you to join a trade association which imposes a formal test for admittance prior to practicing law. Technical knowledge of dejure laws (formally passed), regulations (explicitly stated, but under the license of a law where they are given effect), defacto laws (rulings or case law), and their interplay is extremely similar to knowledge of RFCs, APIs, tooling systems, and their interplay.

mieseratte 9y ago
One could make superficial comparisons between just about any career, from law and medicine to tradesman. Every job requires domain specific knowledge, how things interact, etc. The application of that knowledge is how and why things are different. I actually asked a friend of mine, programmer-turned-lawyer, how similar the two were based off your premise. To him, there are completely unrelated skill sets that differentiate the two. I'm sure some subset of lawyers overlaps with what some subset of software engineers do, generically speaking, but a practicing lawyer winning cases and a software engineer actually writing code are very different beasts.