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Remuneration is only one dimension in this. A certain distance has opened up in modernity. It is between what is accounted for and what is casual. Between the

Remuneration is only one dimension in this. A certain distance has opened up in modernity. It is between what is accounted for and what is casual. Between the formal and the informal. Official, and unofficial. It is about what it "recognised" ... by whom? Paradoxically, this age in which everything must be measured, approved, certified and stamped, has made the amateur-professional distinction more about the rituals and symbols of quality rather than measurable quality. My bachelors degree in CS&EE meant reading about 12 books, plus validation through a gauntlet of examinations. For my troubles I got a nice certificate and 40 years of salary increase. The reality is that I read two dozen other books in my spare time as a teenager, just for fun and interest, and received no degree for them. Since then I've read many hundreds of books in my life, on philosophy, law, psychology, politics and other subjects. No degrees. Out of love, I've paid more attention, taken better notes and more deeply considered those subjects than I did in the brief 3 years upon which my credentialled career is predicated. Interestingly a doctor, lawyer or professional politician [1] is as free to write code on which a billion people depend as I, yet I cannot practice law, treat patients or have much of a say in how my society is run [2] - not that I'd be any good at those things. Professionalism seems as much about money as it is about how society, including its incumbent elites and class structures, select who is "recognised", who gets to bestow the blessings, and ultimately to control produce and behaviour. While in the army many young lads, whose "heart isn't really in it", are technically "professional soldiers". They hang up their boots after the first tour. Only the crazy ones who become "contractors" (mercenaries) might be said to have the truest instinct for it. Software has carved out a very unusual niche this past 50 years. It's a mercenary game, so complex and difficult that a genuine meritocracy ensues, one that cannot be ignored or papered over with accolades or associations. Either your code works or it doesn't. But that unregulated laissez faire has also created a brutal world in which becoming a "professional" coder is certainly the best way to kill any fun and love for it. Meanwhile many well paid, hard working lawyers and doctors hold on to the love for their work. So I think "professionalism" and the identity, recognition, provision and protections it can offer makes for some very interesting distinctions. [1] Should we even have "professional" politicians? [2] Voting in a race between two idiots doesn't count.

Silverback_VII 4y ago
>Paradoxically, this age in which everything must be measured, approved, certified and stamped, has made the amateur-professional distinction more about the rituals and symbols of quality rather than measurable quality. I'm not sure about it. it's more about the behaviour you display. If you want a secure job it's better to display servitude and finish your degree even if you would make more progress on your own. When you want to become an artist or entrepreneur it is better to display a strong will, risk taking & inability for submission which sometimes means to drop out and follow your own thing. I truly believe that if you want to get to the top you need to leave the path most people take with the risk to land at the very bottom.
gyulai 4y ago
> [...] so complex and difficult that a genuine meritocracy ensues, one that cannot be ignored or papered over with accolades or associations. Either your code works or it doesn't. I don't think complexity automatically breeds meritocracy, and I don't think software is a meritocracy. There's still a "human side" of things that may drown out true merit. For example my first OSS project went something like this: I wrote something from scratch with thousands of lines of code and put it out under the GPL. I told my friend about it. My friend forked the project, wrote only a handful of lines of code of his own, and did a better job at advertising his fork than I did on mine. The result was that he basically stole control over the OSS project from me by doing a better job as a marketer rather than as a programmer. ...nothing meritocratic about that. One thing that has happened to me quite a lot working in commercial environments. Me: "Hey boss, I see your team is trying to tackle problem X with solution Y which doesn't take into account complexity Z. Let me solve that for you." Boss: "Okay, explain complexity Z to me." Me: "Yadda, yadda, yadda, ..." Boss: "I don't understand. It must be because you're a bad communicator." Me: "It may be because I'm smarter than you, and, as a corollary, you're dumber than I. Throw in some Dunning-Kruger effect." Boss: "I'm not dumb, you're dumb, and whenever I let you near any complex problem, you end up making me feel dumb. I don't like feeling that way. Go write some HTML, where I don't end up feeling that way as I go about micromanaging you."
unity1001 4y ago
> Meanwhile many well paid, hard working lawyers and doctors hold on to the love for their work. They really don't. Professional work life, or, any field to which you enter to work for money, is as difficult as the other. Software is not an exception. It has more to do with our current economic system (capitalism) trying to get the maximum profit out of everybody and overworking them than the specificities of any field.

Silverback_VII 4y ago

>Paradoxically, this age in which everything must be measured, approved, certified and stamped, has made the amateur-professional distinction more about the rituals and symbols of quality rather than measurable quality. I'm not sure about it. it's more about the behaviour you display. If you want a secure job it's better to display servitude and finish your degree even if you would make more progress on your own. When you want to become an artist or entrepreneur it is better to display a strong will, risk taking & inability for submission which sometimes means to drop out and follow your own thing. I truly believe that if you want to get to the top you need to leave the path most people take with the risk to land at the very bottom.

gyulai 4y ago

> [...] so complex and difficult that a genuine meritocracy ensues, one that cannot be ignored or papered over with accolades or associations. Either your code works or it doesn't. I don't think complexity automatically breeds meritocracy, and I don't think software is a meritocracy. There's still a "human side" of things that may drown out true merit. For example my first OSS project went something like this: I wrote something from scratch with thousands of lines of code and put it out under the GPL. I told my friend about it. My friend forked the project, wrote only a handful of lines of code of his own, and did a better job at advertising his fork than I did on mine. The result was that he basically stole control over the OSS project from me by doing a better job as a marketer rather than as a programmer. ...nothing meritocratic about that. One thing that has happened to me quite a lot working in commercial environments. Me: "Hey boss, I see your team is trying to tackle problem X with solution Y which doesn't take into account complexity Z. Let me solve that for you." Boss: "Okay, explain complexity Z to me." Me: "Yadda, yadda, yadda, ..." Boss: "I don't understand. It must be because you're a bad communicator." Me: "It may be because I'm smarter than you, and, as a corollary, you're dumber than I. Throw in some Dunning-Kruger effect." Boss: "I'm not dumb, you're dumb, and whenever I let you near any complex problem, you end up making me feel dumb. I don't like feeling that way. Go write some HTML, where I don't end up feeling that way as I go about micromanaging you."

unity1001 4y ago

> Meanwhile many well paid, hard working lawyers and doctors hold on to the love for their work. They really don't. Professional work life, or, any field to which you enter to work for money, is as difficult as the other. Software is not an exception. It has more to do with our current economic system (capitalism) trying to get the maximum profit out of everybody and overworking them than the specificities of any field.