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Call yourself whatever you want. There's no need to gatekeep a title which means so little in the first place.

apetresc 6y ago
Totally agreed. I regularly introduce myself as a doctor to new acquaintances, since I occasionally visit the pharmacy to fill some prescriptions. It totally pisses me off when they insist on asking me what medical school I went to, and elitist crap like that!
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  "licensed medical professional" != "developer"
  - mrweasel 6y ago
    What if you develop software for medical equipment? As developers we’re lucky enough to be able to find industries where our education/certications doesn’t matter. On the other hand, some niches which could use an actual licensed training program. You could in theory teach yourself enough about the medical field to know more than a doctor, still the doctor has a piece of paper saying that someone checked his or her qualifications. Even a CS degree doesn’t tell you anything about a persons abilities to write software.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      What if you develop software for medical equipment? Then you're a programmer, not a doctor. still the doctor has a piece of paper saying that some checked his or her qualifications Yes. That's how we keep the frauds and whackjobs from killing people. "Gatekeeping" is a dirty word on HN, but it also has its usefulness. We don't let just anyone drive a car, even if they really really really think they know how. You have to have a license.
      - commandlinefan 6y ago
        > "Gatekeeping" is a dirty word on HN, but it also has its usefulness Especially considering that its literal definition is "requiring people to actually understand how to program computers before hiring them for professional computer programming jobs".
        fredsanford 6y ago
        > Especially considering that its literal definition is "requiring people to actually understand how to program computers Too bad no one ever told Microsoft about that...
    - adsjhdashkj 6y ago
      Yea i was going to ask how the license would differ from a CS degree. I assume you're thinking of more of an .. apprenticeship arrangement? Something to vet the authors capability? The problem here is "developing" is so loose and unique that it's difficult for me to even imagine a useful certification. Lets take easy examples - can someone make a store front to handle incoming transactions? Well firstly that tells me nothing of the scalability, security and mostly importantly maintainability of the software. It tells me nothing about the language of choice, assuming i care.. which you usually do if there's a team involved and you're trying to integrate a new employee. But even if we ignore those we still have the biggest issue that i see; software development tends to be unicorns, imo. Every project i've worked on is largely unique, and while there is overlap - eg all of it is APIs, the quality of the work (if i was to self judge) was solving the problems inside the "Web API CRUD". In a building analogy - i don't care that you can build a house to spec. I care that you can architect the floor plan, decide features yourself, future proof as best you can, etc. Perhaps there's some level of architect certification that matches this, no idea. But i care about peoples generic ability to problem solve, to find information and suss out real application. Their ability to build a house according to spec is of little to no interest to me.
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    Medical licensing came about precisely because there were too many quacks and incompetents claiming to be qualified doctors who were harming or killing patients.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- throwaway38235 6y ago
  It has to do with the risk and impact of your work. Medical doctors, engineers, lawyers, researcher, teachers - they all do important things and need training, selection and accountability. Luckily, developers never have to write MCAS software for Boeing, so we can hang out on HN where you can be a Senior Engineer after a 6 months bootcamp and 2 years of stack overflow.
  - oliwarner 6y ago
    Data safety isn't nothing though. Developers should have some appreciation for security vectors, laws around its collection, storage and processing, and knowing when (and how) to delete it. Accessibility. Deployment. What happens when it all goes wrong. Far from an exhaustive list but you can see what I mean. I don't think anybody is arguing about what people do for themselves, but advertising yourself as a developer when you might have no experience or training, misleads people. Gives the rest of us a bad name. This is real a problem for freelance developers. In the 15 years or so I've been doing it, I've heard at least 30 stories of how "the last guy" critically underdelivered, and there's basically an expectation I'm going to run off with their cash. I relieve them of this pretty rapidly but it's a very defensive process.
    - throwaway38235 6y ago
      You are really missing the point and my sarcasm here...
- xboxnolifes 6y ago
  It looks like this bit didn't show up in the parent comment for you: > a title which means so little in the first place
leafboi 6y ago
I disagree. It's blurry and not so clear cut but certain ranks need to be earned otherwise it's fraud. For example what if I called myself a Navy Seal and combat veteran even though I'm not? That would be dishonorable and insulting to people who actually risked their lives.
- LegitShady 6y ago
  It would be a federal misdemeanor, not just "dishonest" which is why the analogy sucks. Going to compare yourself to a veteran to make a point about developers is pretty low.
  - leafboi 6y ago
    Don't call me low that's rude. I find it low whenever a commenter on HN decides to be call someone low simply because they disagree. You're using words to twist my statement as if I'm insulting veterans. I clearly am not, don't try to manipulate others' into thinking that's what I'm doing. I'm saying that you can't call yourself whatever you want in all cases. I use an extreme example to illustrate that it's not so clear cut. Giving yourself titles doesn't only apply to developers and it's not so clear cut why we can only be so laissez faire in software but not in other certain fields.
    - LegitShady 6y ago
      I didn't fall it low because I disagreed I called it lo because you jumped to a low analogy. And you using a legally protected status to talk about developers is not relevant and a poor analogy but ok. You using veterans is low.
      - leafboi 6y ago
        It's not low at all. It is also 100% relevant. It's called misusing titles which is the topic at hand. In some cases it's ok in some cases it's not ok. I have not insulted veterans in any way. You're just trying to start a witch hunt. Not so far from pointing at me and shouting "racist" for no reason. Doing that is not just low it's vile.
mylons 6y ago
the gatekeeping in software is sad. why is it that so many in our field feel that gatekeeping and always being correct, to the point of aggressive confrontation, is the way to do this? are we all that insecure?
- adsjhdashkj 6y ago
  I think to some degree there's usefulness in gatekeeping titles - as titles could be a great way to know areas or level of expertise. Key word "could" be. Unfortunately the nature of language combined with personally assigned titles means that there's no point in even trying because, i think, it's impossible. Call yourself whatever you want. I'm still going to need to vet it for myself if i need to hire you.
  - mylons 6y ago
    titles are often just a way to make an employee feel self important without giving them a raise. see pmarca and zuck discussing this.
- arwhatever 6y ago
  David Parnas explained in an interview: Q: What is the most often-overlooked risk in software engineering? A: Incompetent programmers. There are estimates that the number of programmers needed in the U.S. exceeds 200,000. This is entirely misleading. It is not a quantity problem; we have a quality problem. One bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year. Hiring more bad programmers will just increase our perceived need for them. If we had more good programmers, and could easily identify them, we would need fewer, not more. ... most software developers will have direct exposure to/experience with one or more such incompetent programmers.
commandlinefan 6y ago
I call myself "president", but that damned secret service keeps gatekeeping me out of my white house.
- HumblyTossed 6y ago
  Because you didn't capitalize it.
airstrike 6y ago
Call yourself whatever you want. There's no need to be accurate.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
itsoktocry 6y ago
>Call yourself whatever you want. I agree, call yourself whatever you want. At the same time, expect to get a few quizzical looks from potential employers or clients looking for a developer when you tell them you can't actually code.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
happytoexplain 6y ago
To be clear, the issue at hand is calling yourself a developer when you are one step higher than typical on the abstraction chain (e.g. WordPress). So far, the responses to this comment have chosen to take it outside of that context, and compared it to calling yourself a doctor when you have no medical education, a Navy Seal and combat veteran when you are neither, and the president of the United States. There is apparently no limit to how false an equivalence can become.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  > calling yourself a doctor when you have no medical education ... as opposed to calling yourself a developer when you have no software education (or even actual experience)?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
ravenstine 6y ago
It's not gatekeeping. Sure, you can call yourself whatever you want but, if what you call yourself doesn't accurately reflect the expectations of others, your title means nothing and people aren't obligated to respect it. If someone doesn't want to be perceived as a douchebag, then their alternatives are to not be deceptive to people or to learn the skills to earn the title.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  > people aren't obligated to respect it There's actually a word for calling yourself something that you aren't: fraud.
thih9 6y ago
I agree with you in general. However I don’t understand how this relates to the article. Could you elaborate? E.g. how would you address the difficulties described in the text? > This wouldn’t have been a major problem unless it affected the entire industry: (...)

Totally agreed. I regularly introduce myself as a doctor to new acquaintances, since I occasionally visit the pharmacy to fill some prescriptions. It totally pisses me off when they insist on asking me what medical school I went to, and elitist crap like that!

klmadfejno 6y ago
"licensed medical professional" != "developer"
- mrweasel 6y ago
  What if you develop software for medical equipment? As developers we’re lucky enough to be able to find industries where our education/certications doesn’t matter. On the other hand, some niches which could use an actual licensed training program. You could in theory teach yourself enough about the medical field to know more than a doctor, still the doctor has a piece of paper saying that someone checked his or her qualifications. Even a CS degree doesn’t tell you anything about a persons abilities to write software.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    What if you develop software for medical equipment? Then you're a programmer, not a doctor. still the doctor has a piece of paper saying that some checked his or her qualifications Yes. That's how we keep the frauds and whackjobs from killing people. "Gatekeeping" is a dirty word on HN, but it also has its usefulness. We don't let just anyone drive a car, even if they really really really think they know how. You have to have a license.
    - commandlinefan 6y ago
      > "Gatekeeping" is a dirty word on HN, but it also has its usefulness Especially considering that its literal definition is "requiring people to actually understand how to program computers before hiring them for professional computer programming jobs".
      - fredsanford 6y ago
        > Especially considering that its literal definition is "requiring people to actually understand how to program computers Too bad no one ever told Microsoft about that...
  - adsjhdashkj 6y ago
    Yea i was going to ask how the license would differ from a CS degree. I assume you're thinking of more of an .. apprenticeship arrangement? Something to vet the authors capability? The problem here is "developing" is so loose and unique that it's difficult for me to even imagine a useful certification. Lets take easy examples - can someone make a store front to handle incoming transactions? Well firstly that tells me nothing of the scalability, security and mostly importantly maintainability of the software. It tells me nothing about the language of choice, assuming i care.. which you usually do if there's a team involved and you're trying to integrate a new employee. But even if we ignore those we still have the biggest issue that i see; software development tends to be unicorns, imo. Every project i've worked on is largely unique, and while there is overlap - eg all of it is APIs, the quality of the work (if i was to self judge) was solving the problems inside the "Web API CRUD". In a building analogy - i don't care that you can build a house to spec. I care that you can architect the floor plan, decide features yourself, future proof as best you can, etc. Perhaps there's some level of architect certification that matches this, no idea. But i care about peoples generic ability to problem solve, to find information and suss out real application. Their ability to build a house according to spec is of little to no interest to me.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  Medical licensing came about precisely because there were too many quacks and incompetents claiming to be qualified doctors who were harming or killing patients.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
throwaway38235 6y ago
It has to do with the risk and impact of your work. Medical doctors, engineers, lawyers, researcher, teachers - they all do important things and need training, selection and accountability. Luckily, developers never have to write MCAS software for Boeing, so we can hang out on HN where you can be a Senior Engineer after a 6 months bootcamp and 2 years of stack overflow.
- oliwarner 6y ago
  Data safety isn't nothing though. Developers should have some appreciation for security vectors, laws around its collection, storage and processing, and knowing when (and how) to delete it. Accessibility. Deployment. What happens when it all goes wrong. Far from an exhaustive list but you can see what I mean. I don't think anybody is arguing about what people do for themselves, but advertising yourself as a developer when you might have no experience or training, misleads people. Gives the rest of us a bad name. This is real a problem for freelance developers. In the 15 years or so I've been doing it, I've heard at least 30 stories of how "the last guy" critically underdelivered, and there's basically an expectation I'm going to run off with their cash. I relieve them of this pretty rapidly but it's a very defensive process.
  - throwaway38235 6y ago
    You are really missing the point and my sarcasm here...
xboxnolifes 6y ago
It looks like this bit didn't show up in the parent comment for you: > a title which means so little in the first place

leafboi 6y ago

I disagree. It's blurry and not so clear cut but certain ranks need to be earned otherwise it's fraud. For example what if I called myself a Navy Seal and combat veteran even though I'm not? That would be dishonorable and insulting to people who actually risked their lives.

LegitShady 6y ago
It would be a federal misdemeanor, not just "dishonest" which is why the analogy sucks. Going to compare yourself to a veteran to make a point about developers is pretty low.
- leafboi 6y ago
  Don't call me low that's rude. I find it low whenever a commenter on HN decides to be call someone low simply because they disagree. You're using words to twist my statement as if I'm insulting veterans. I clearly am not, don't try to manipulate others' into thinking that's what I'm doing. I'm saying that you can't call yourself whatever you want in all cases. I use an extreme example to illustrate that it's not so clear cut. Giving yourself titles doesn't only apply to developers and it's not so clear cut why we can only be so laissez faire in software but not in other certain fields.
  - LegitShady 6y ago
    I didn't fall it low because I disagreed I called it lo because you jumped to a low analogy. And you using a legally protected status to talk about developers is not relevant and a poor analogy but ok. You using veterans is low.
    - leafboi 6y ago
      It's not low at all. It is also 100% relevant. It's called misusing titles which is the topic at hand. In some cases it's ok in some cases it's not ok. I have not insulted veterans in any way. You're just trying to start a witch hunt. Not so far from pointing at me and shouting "racist" for no reason. Doing that is not just low it's vile.

mylons 6y ago

the gatekeeping in software is sad. why is it that so many in our field feel that gatekeeping and always being correct, to the point of aggressive confrontation, is the way to do this? are we all that insecure?

adsjhdashkj 6y ago
I think to some degree there's usefulness in gatekeeping titles - as titles could be a great way to know areas or level of expertise. Key word "could" be. Unfortunately the nature of language combined with personally assigned titles means that there's no point in even trying because, i think, it's impossible. Call yourself whatever you want. I'm still going to need to vet it for myself if i need to hire you.
- mylons 6y ago
  titles are often just a way to make an employee feel self important without giving them a raise. see pmarca and zuck discussing this.
arwhatever 6y ago
David Parnas explained in an interview: Q: What is the most often-overlooked risk in software engineering? A: Incompetent programmers. There are estimates that the number of programmers needed in the U.S. exceeds 200,000. This is entirely misleading. It is not a quantity problem; we have a quality problem. One bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year. Hiring more bad programmers will just increase our perceived need for them. If we had more good programmers, and could easily identify them, we would need fewer, not more. ... most software developers will have direct exposure to/experience with one or more such incompetent programmers.

commandlinefan 6y ago

I call myself "president", but that damned secret service keeps gatekeeping me out of my white house.

HumblyTossed 6y ago
Because you didn't capitalize it.

airstrike 6y ago

Call yourself whatever you want. There's no need to be accurate.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

itsoktocry 6y ago

>Call yourself whatever you want. I agree, call yourself whatever you want. At the same time, expect to get a few quizzical looks from potential employers or clients looking for a developer when you tell them you can't actually code.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

happytoexplain 6y ago

To be clear, the issue at hand is calling yourself a developer when you are one step higher than typical on the abstraction chain (e.g. WordPress). So far, the responses to this comment have chosen to take it outside of that context, and compared it to calling yourself a doctor when you have no medical education, a Navy Seal and combat veteran when you are neither, and the president of the United States. There is apparently no limit to how false an equivalence can become.

commandlinefan 6y ago
> calling yourself a doctor when you have no medical education ... as opposed to calling yourself a developer when you have no software education (or even actual experience)?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

ravenstine 6y ago

It's not gatekeeping. Sure, you can call yourself whatever you want but, if what you call yourself doesn't accurately reflect the expectations of others, your title means nothing and people aren't obligated to respect it. If someone doesn't want to be perceived as a douchebag, then their alternatives are to not be deceptive to people or to learn the skills to earn the title.

commandlinefan 6y ago
> people aren't obligated to respect it There's actually a word for calling yourself something that you aren't: fraud.

thih9 6y ago

I agree with you in general. However I don’t understand how this relates to the article. Could you elaborate? E.g. how would you address the difficulties described in the text? > This wouldn’t have been a major problem unless it affected the entire industry: (...)