I fully agree with you - everybody has to start somewhere, and nobody gets ahead just doing things they're 100% comfortable with. That said, if you're going to

I fully agree with you - everybody has to start somewhere, and nobody gets ahead just doing things they're 100% comfortable with. That said, if you're going to give the impression that you can swim in the deep end, you need to be fully prepared to suffer the blowback if it's discovered that you actually can't swim in the deep end. In response to the due diligence - this sort of goes down a rathole, but the industry as a whole is lacking serious professionalism and credibility standards (certifications don't count, in general). There is no professional liability (aside from personal name besmirching - hence the harsh criticism and feedback). If you get hired in 2011 to do a site for someone, and your database stores passwords in plaintext - in my mind, that's a fundamental enough error that you SHOULD be able to be held professionally and legally liable. I'll be the first to admit - the problem with this is the question of where do you draw the line? What SHOULD everybody know AT MINIMUM before they can commercially sell services like that? I hate the idea of licensing as much as anybody else, but our only recourse is 'self-policing' - hence the harsh criticism and attacks.