5 ms·

But an Act just like we have for engineers/architects/lawyers/doctors only shows that there is monopoly coming soon. I know very little about Malaysia, so I ca

But an Act just like we have for engineers/architects/lawyers/doctors only shows that there is monopoly coming soon. I know very little about Malaysia, so I can't say for sure whether licensing engineers/architects/lawyers/doctors has been a net positive there, but I strongly suspect that it has been, just like everywhere else in the world that has tried it. It is certainly not "insane". Remember, lots of people in IT don't even have degrees in their respective fields -- thats the beauty of IT. Similarly, the problem with IT (from back street "computer repair" guys, through to "systems integration engineers" from large consultancies) is that there are too many dodgy chancers who have no real idea what they're doing, and who end up bodging everything together with spit and bailer twine. Suggesting that this is a problem that the industry has had decades to solve on its own and has failed, and that it might now be time for the government to get involved is certainly not "insane" either.

henrikschroder 15y ago
There's a big difference between IT and the other licensed fields is that they are mature professions where change is slow and a university education and a license actually means competence, and the expectations of their clients are sane and bounded. IT is an immature profession, change is rapid, best practice are constantly changing, client expectations are insane and unbounded, and there are many, many people in the industry with a university degree that can't program their way out of a cardboard box, while there are people with no formal education and a few years of experience that are better than most veterans. The skill of a programmer depends too much on creativity, so a license can only guarantee half of the skillset, not the entire skillset, and therefore it's worthless.
- waitwhat 15y ago
  The degree issue is a bit of a red herring, to be honest: it is not obvious that a particular degree would be either necessary or sufficient for certification (either in general, or the specific case of Malaysia.) For example, in the UK a three-year accounting degree only shaves ~6 months off the time needed to become professionally qualified, and many accountants studied something else at university anyway.
  - tref 15y ago
    Having a particular degree is less important than understanding the basics. Unfortunately, it is possible to advance quite far as a developer without understanding the basics. And although true incompetents are quickly weeded out, there is another aspect: maintenence. Often people move from job to job, producing working, but sub-optimal solutions, and leave an enormous maintenence burden behind. At my first job after graduating we had a self-taught architect/god/guru who never bothered with primary keys. One of our systems started slowing to a crawl. I added primary keys, and some indexes and suddenly I was a whizz kid. Another time I went for a job interview with an architect who was an actual architect (i.e. he studied designing buildings, not software systems). He didn't understand the concept of database normalization. Needless to say, I didn't take the offer. Some of the best, and worst developers I've worked with had no degrees. On the other hand, CS majors were generally a "safe pair of hands", especially after they got a few years experience behind them.. If credentialling guaranteed a basic level of competence, with, or without a degree, I think it's a great idea.
  - henrikschroder 15y ago
    Fair enough, but if a degree doesn't guarantee competence, how could a license? CS programmes everywhere are getting blasted by the industry for not "producing" graduates that meet their requirements, therefore it's reasonable to assume that a certification process would suffer the same fate. How could such a process meet the demands of a rapidly changing industry where different players have completely different requirements, where the language-du-jour is constantly changing, where best practices are outdated in a few years, and where the only way to survive is to constantly educate yourself? I don't see how an IT license could lead to anything but a sort of tax on corporate IT companies that wish to do business with the government.
- twelvechairs 15y ago
  As an architect (buildings, not software) I can say that there are both many highly capable people who are not licensed, and many poor practitioners who are licensed architects. I couldn't be sure if this was the same for lawyers/doctors/engineers etc. My guess is that it is probably similar for lawyers but less true for others.... I believe in private accreditation (in computers this is already common for some jobs, through accreditors like Microsoft, Cisco, etc.) and letting end clients make their own judgements as to whether private accreditation is necessary for their choice of professional. I do not believe in public accreditation, which is often a single-system for diverse fields (eg. architecture) and actually limits people from calling themselves by a commonly known job title (eg. you cant call yourself an 'architect' unless you pass this single [often poor] accreditation procedure).
- bad_user 15y ago
  There are licensed medics out there that can't perform CPR (I've seen one). My government is filled with licensed incompetents that get paid for sitting on their asses from 9 to 5, with a launch break in between. Usually when people see incompetence in action, trying to do the right thing, they'll just throw their hands in the air waiting for a solution from the government. But licenses encourage bribery, nepotism and other means of gaming the system. The effects are quite contrary to what people want. Instead, grant these licenses by default without fees or limits, then let the employer decide if a candidate is good enough. Let the market decide if the employer is good enough. And if people's lives are threatened because of somebody's incompetence, then invalidate his license for a couple of months or permanently. If people's lives are lost because of incompetence, then throw that somebody in jail. This is a system based on meritocracy and punishment in case of big failures. It works a lot better than a government imposed barrier to entry.
jawngee 15y ago
waitwhat. It's such a huge problem that the advancement of technology surely has been completely stunted the world over. /sarcasm The problem is what you are licensing exactly. I don't know how many "certified" developers I've worked with who were complete freaking idiots. A license isn't some sort of quality signifier, it's just more bureaucracy and government involvement in a field that moves too rapidly for certification to keep up. There aren't that many "dodgy chancers". They don't survive in the industry, otherwise the industry falls over on itself.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- waitwhat 15y ago
  If the majority of the people in the industry are idiots [...] The majority of people in the industry aren't idiots. Imagine if you couldn't advise your friends on how to clean up their registry, or write a script for them because you were practicing computing with out a license! Imagine the silliness of being arrested for showing someone how to use an abacus. You're just being silly. It is not illegal for me to suggest someone take a pill if they have a headache, offer a friend an anti-histamine, put a plaster on my girl-friend's cut, or clean my nephew's scraped knee with anti-septic. It is also not illegal for me to help prepare someone else's tax return, or the paperwork for small claims court. What is illegal, is presenting myself as a qualified professional when I am not. That, to me, sounds eminently reasonable.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - rimantas 15y ago
    > presenting myself as a qualified > professional when I am not. Certification actually would allow many to do exactly that legally. Comparison with medicine and architecture does not apply there for the reasons named elsewhere in comments.
    - waitwhat 15y ago
      Certification actually would allow many to do exactly that legally. I meant qualified/certified not qualified/competent.
  - briandear 15y ago
    Define "qualified" when it comes to computers.
    - waitwhat 15y ago
fleitz 15y ago
Our world is made of spit and bailer twine. The only difference is the skill at which one uses spit and bailer twine. IIRC LCD panels still have a manufacturing step involving rubbing wool on them, because rubbing wool on an LCD 'makes it work'. It's only those of us who see spit and bailer twine as all we need that can manage to turn a hacky property of silicon into NAND gates and from NAND gates an iPhone. If you still doubt it's spit and bailer twine, consider this picture: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/talk/transistor.gif http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/talk/transistor.gif The real professionals are those that can pair their twine with a slick marketing document.
- StavrosK 15y ago
  > It's only those of us who see spit and bailer twine as all we need that can manage to turn a hacky property of silicon into NAND gates and from NAND gates an iPhone. Are you seriously suggesting that the same train of thought that "rubs wool on LCDs because it 'makes them work'" was responsible for turning silicon into an iPhone?
  - fleitz 15y ago
    Yes, there are those that would refuse to rub wool because it's a voodoo step. Those people will never turn silicon into iPhones because they let not knowing stand in the way of creating solutions. The first software that I wrote professionally was atrocious, hacky as hell, but it worked. I didn't let the fact that I didn't know how to program stand in the way of creating a solution. I probably could have spent a year reading books and writing practice software and the solution I came up with would have been much more elegant, but it wouldn't have mattered, they needed a solution today, not next year when I might have understood writing software at a much better level. I'm suggesting that knowing that something does work is far more important than knowing how it works, or why it works. Whilst I'm sure LCD manufactures have their scientists on understanding that part of the manufacturing process in the meantime they'll do their voodoo wool rub because it works. Maybe the wool rub with the plastic in the LCD disrupts the higgs field, who knows. Rubbing wool on an LCD because it works is an example of spit and bailer twine 'engineering'. Similarly, the first transistor was a massive hack, but a huge step forward for technology. I'm not advocating ignorance, I'm just saying that those who are ignorant can make huge steps forward, eg. the first guy who rubbed wool on an LCD. I'm sure the original facebook code had SQL statement embedded next to HTML; everyone knows it's a bad idea, but despite that you can put the foundations in place to make a huge business. The important thing is solving problems, not the elegance of the solution. Be a wright brother, make an airplane despite the fact that no one knows how. Solve a problem first, make it elegant second.
sek 15y ago
Waitwhat? Did you ever read the name of this site? It is called "Hacker" News. Learning Java at college doesn't change anything for the computer repair guy. I know what government means then, you have to hire a 4000$ guy to repair your computer who doesn't know how to do it.
- waitwhat 15y ago
  Why do you believe that there will be a single certification?
  - sek 15y ago
    I don't said that, but just imagine everything that is done in the IT is only allowed to do by graduates. What degree is best for repairing computers? The best you can find is probably someone who does this out of joy and knows most of the current hardware.
    - waitwhat 15y ago
      just imagine everything that is done in the IT is only allowed to do by graduates. That's a terrible idea (and doesn't appear to be the solution that is being proposed in Malaysia.)
henrikschroder 15y ago
> Suggesting that this is a problem that the industry has had decades to solve on its own and has failed, and that it might now be time for the government to get involved is certainly not "insane" either. I remember ten years ago when people had certifications from either Sun or Microsoft. They were completely worthless, and the people that had them fell in one of three categories: 1) The ones who got them as a joke, but were actually competent 2) The ones who got them seriously, to try to hide their incompetence 3) IT consultants who did jobs for big, boring, government agencies, or big, boring corporate IT departments and got them out of necessity to score those contracts. I see no reason to believe that a government backed IT license wouldn't suffer the same fate, and since those licences were useless, the government one will be, and therefore the suggestion is insane. However, there are industry certifications that aren't worthless, I place high value on the top Cisco networking certifications, but it's also very important to note that that part of IT is the most like conventional engineering and client expectations are sane and bounded. I see a pattern. Do you?
- jasonkester 15y ago
  Ah yes, I remember them fondly. According to my MCSD records, Microsoft has certified that on three separate occasions in the early 2000's, I had an extra $100 in my pocket and an hour to kill. The scary thing was that you could pretty much take those exams cold if you worked with the technology at all, yet you'd meet these extremely nervous looking people in the waiting room at the testing center talking about how they hoped their 6-week prep class would pay off and they'd be able to pass this time.
_delirium 15y ago
The main difference I see is that computers are quite pervasive, so requiring professional licensing for everything computational would be a draconian step, while in other cases the licensing tends to be limited to "official" applications of the expertise, like signing off on a bridge design (though the legal field does overreach imo, with the cartel instincts kicking in and trying to get things like Nolo books banned). For example, should I need government licensing before I'm allowed to sell a $0.99 iPhone game? Is there any real public-interest reason for such a licensing regime? I tend to think certifying the safety/quality of products or systems is a better approach than certifying people. In the U.S., for example, it is not common (contrary to some countries) for engineers making consumer products (as opposed to civil infrastructure) to be licensed professional engineers. Instead, the products themselves are tested; for example, a toaster has to pass various safety tests before it can be sold.
ataggart 15y ago
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, we'll get government to fix it." Now they have two problems.
teyc 15y ago
As someone who lived in Malaysia, you have to understand the political climate there. University places are allocated based on racial quotas. Therefore, the people who are most concerned by this legislation are ethnic Chinese, who are more likely find themselves disqualified from doing certain work due to their inability to access higher education places. Alternatively, businesses may be forced to hire degree'd people to sign off work as theirs even if these people didn't do any of the programming.
- golvin 15y ago
  As a Malaysian, I beg to differ. It's true that we have to know the political climate, but the political climate you're looking at is only a small part of it. If this bill is passed, it will not only hurt people of a particular ethnicity, but everyone and the whole IT industry in the country. Given the track record of the incumbent political party, I strongly believe that most of the 'registered' people will be the people who are very close to them. The 'registered' people will make use of their status to get themselves into rent-seeking activities to take advantages of the companies/people who genuinely want to start up an IT company or involve in an IT project. This will in turn hurt the IT industry in Malaysia, which is already very weak due to current rent-seeking activities. What will happen eventually? More brain drain to the country, and not to forget a stagnant, if not backward-moving, IT industry in Malaysia. You only see the racial thing here because you are not looking at the bigger picture. It's true enough that the 'registered' people will most probably be ethnic Malays, but those are ethnic Malays who are close to the incumbent party. The majority of the ethnic Malay will get as little as the ethnic Chinese get. EDIT: > University places are allocated based on racial quotas. Therefore, the people who are most concerned by this legislation are ethnic Chinese, who are more likely find themselves disqualified from doing certain work due to their inability to access higher education places. It's true that qualified ethnic Chinese are having less chance to enter the public colleges, but most of them who can't get into public colleges go for private colleges or study abroad instead. In average, the literacy and qualification of ethnic Chinese is higher than other ethnics in Malaysia. So it's untrue to say that they are concerned due to their inability to access higher education. While there probably is an issue of education equality but the bill does not relate to the issue.
ajuc 15y ago
Regulation isn't always good. I'd say it's mostly bad. For example - in my country for more important contracts (like selling house, etc) there is a requirement, that apart from both sides signs, that "notariusz" (dictionary says it's notary public) will sign this contract. "Notariusz" is regulated job, there is constant amount of them (you have to pass very hard exam to become one, and mostly being a notariusz goes from father to son ,because others won't pass exams somehow). People are required to hire a notariusz to check important contracts, and notariusz gets percentage of contract worth for a work, that any intelligent people will do anyway (like checking ground register before buying a house, etc). I do think they are sometimes usefull, but why regulate them? Why are they mandatory? People that want to risk should be able to risk, people that want to be safe can pay more to be safe. In IT various schools and certificates exists, so people can prove, that they are good enough to do some job. There are bad schools and better schools and certificates, why do you think state will be better at assesing people qualifications than private company (which sole buisness model will depend on being good at that). Why is state always trying to do others work? I'd much prefer free market in such matters. The same goes for engineers, architects, etc. Just make sure people are responsible for their errors, and there would be cheap but risky architects, and expansive but safe ones. And insurance companies would require you to hire these with respectable certificates. No need for state to mess with this.
- waitwhat 15y ago
  I'm curious how you stand on the regulation of insurance companies. Do you think this is something that the free market should also take care of? And what about (retail) banks?
  - ajuc 15y ago
    Retail banks are special case, because they are given special government permission to multiply money, and if abused, this priviledge can make the whole economy crash. So banks that lend more money than they have should be controlled by someone. And banks are only a few in a market, big, and can easily ignore new companies wanting to certificate them, making these certificates worthless. So there is need to regulate banks. With workers it's not a problem, so there is no need for state to get involved. Regarding insurance companies - I don't think there is inherent need for regulation. A few broken insurance companies won't destroy economy. For their clients it will be a problem, but that's also true for other activities we currently don't regulate. At first, insurance companies wasn't regulated, and they somehow managed to work. Now people expects state to regulate them, so we trust unknown insurance companies too much, so if we were to stop with regulation, many people will lose. But if we did not started regulating them before - this would not be a problem.
learc83 15y ago
Who are these "back street 'computer repair' guys", and "dodgy chancers", and where are you seeing them? If there were some sort of magic certification regime that would guarantee, a programmer knew what he was doing, you can be certain such a certificate would already exist. You also seem to have just ignored all the problems that exist with mandatory doctors and lawyers guilds. For example the AMA hasn't allowed any new Medical schools to open in the US since the early 80s. There is a reason doctors and lawyers are so expensive, it's because their guilds have an incentive to keep them artificially scarce. Right now IT is one of the few professional fields where you can essential apprentice your way to a job. I can guarantee that were we to establish a mandatory governing body, a degree would be required. Hell, in Florida they require Interior Decorators to have an approved degree (very narrow definition of approved degree too, I might add). In Georgia (where I live), the board who overseas General Contractors, ruled they have $1,000,000 in assets in addition to the insurance they were already required to have to cover damages. The only reason it was passed was to protect the jobs of established contractors, who were being forced to compete with lower wage Mexican labor. That kind of thing will happen to the IT industry if you regulate it similarly.

henrikschroder 15y ago

There's a big difference between IT and the other licensed fields is that they are mature professions where change is slow and a university education and a license actually means competence, and the expectations of their clients are sane and bounded. IT is an immature profession, change is rapid, best practice are constantly changing, client expectations are insane and unbounded, and there are many, many people in the industry with a university degree that can't program their way out of a cardboard box, while there are people with no formal education and a few years of experience that are better than most veterans. The skill of a programmer depends too much on creativity, so a license can only guarantee half of the skillset, not the entire skillset, and therefore it's worthless.

waitwhat 15y ago
The degree issue is a bit of a red herring, to be honest: it is not obvious that a particular degree would be either necessary or sufficient for certification (either in general, or the specific case of Malaysia.) For example, in the UK a three-year accounting degree only shaves ~6 months off the time needed to become professionally qualified, and many accountants studied something else at university anyway.
- tref 15y ago
  Having a particular degree is less important than understanding the basics. Unfortunately, it is possible to advance quite far as a developer without understanding the basics. And although true incompetents are quickly weeded out, there is another aspect: maintenence. Often people move from job to job, producing working, but sub-optimal solutions, and leave an enormous maintenence burden behind. At my first job after graduating we had a self-taught architect/god/guru who never bothered with primary keys. One of our systems started slowing to a crawl. I added primary keys, and some indexes and suddenly I was a whizz kid. Another time I went for a job interview with an architect who was an actual architect (i.e. he studied designing buildings, not software systems). He didn't understand the concept of database normalization. Needless to say, I didn't take the offer. Some of the best, and worst developers I've worked with had no degrees. On the other hand, CS majors were generally a "safe pair of hands", especially after they got a few years experience behind them.. If credentialling guaranteed a basic level of competence, with, or without a degree, I think it's a great idea.
- henrikschroder 15y ago
  Fair enough, but if a degree doesn't guarantee competence, how could a license? CS programmes everywhere are getting blasted by the industry for not "producing" graduates that meet their requirements, therefore it's reasonable to assume that a certification process would suffer the same fate. How could such a process meet the demands of a rapidly changing industry where different players have completely different requirements, where the language-du-jour is constantly changing, where best practices are outdated in a few years, and where the only way to survive is to constantly educate yourself? I don't see how an IT license could lead to anything but a sort of tax on corporate IT companies that wish to do business with the government.
twelvechairs 15y ago
As an architect (buildings, not software) I can say that there are both many highly capable people who are not licensed, and many poor practitioners who are licensed architects. I couldn't be sure if this was the same for lawyers/doctors/engineers etc. My guess is that it is probably similar for lawyers but less true for others.... I believe in private accreditation (in computers this is already common for some jobs, through accreditors like Microsoft, Cisco, etc.) and letting end clients make their own judgements as to whether private accreditation is necessary for their choice of professional. I do not believe in public accreditation, which is often a single-system for diverse fields (eg. architecture) and actually limits people from calling themselves by a commonly known job title (eg. you cant call yourself an 'architect' unless you pass this single [often poor] accreditation procedure).
bad_user 15y ago
There are licensed medics out there that can't perform CPR (I've seen one). My government is filled with licensed incompetents that get paid for sitting on their asses from 9 to 5, with a launch break in between. Usually when people see incompetence in action, trying to do the right thing, they'll just throw their hands in the air waiting for a solution from the government. But licenses encourage bribery, nepotism and other means of gaming the system. The effects are quite contrary to what people want. Instead, grant these licenses by default without fees or limits, then let the employer decide if a candidate is good enough. Let the market decide if the employer is good enough. And if people's lives are threatened because of somebody's incompetence, then invalidate his license for a couple of months or permanently. If people's lives are lost because of incompetence, then throw that somebody in jail. This is a system based on meritocracy and punishment in case of big failures. It works a lot better than a government imposed barrier to entry.

jawngee 15y ago

waitwhat. It's such a huge problem that the advancement of technology surely has been completely stunted the world over. /sarcasm The problem is what you are licensing exactly. I don't know how many "certified" developers I've worked with who were complete freaking idiots. A license isn't some sort of quality signifier, it's just more bureaucracy and government involvement in a field that moves too rapidly for certification to keep up. There aren't that many "dodgy chancers". They don't survive in the industry, otherwise the industry falls over on itself.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

waitwhat 15y ago
If the majority of the people in the industry are idiots [...] The majority of people in the industry aren't idiots. Imagine if you couldn't advise your friends on how to clean up their registry, or write a script for them because you were practicing computing with out a license! Imagine the silliness of being arrested for showing someone how to use an abacus. You're just being silly. It is not illegal for me to suggest someone take a pill if they have a headache, offer a friend an anti-histamine, put a plaster on my girl-friend's cut, or clean my nephew's scraped knee with anti-septic. It is also not illegal for me to help prepare someone else's tax return, or the paperwork for small claims court. What is illegal, is presenting myself as a qualified professional when I am not. That, to me, sounds eminently reasonable.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- rimantas 15y ago
  > presenting myself as a qualified > professional when I am not. Certification actually would allow many to do exactly that legally. Comparison with medicine and architecture does not apply there for the reasons named elsewhere in comments.
  - waitwhat 15y ago
    Certification actually would allow many to do exactly that legally. I meant qualified/certified not qualified/competent.
- briandear 15y ago
  Define "qualified" when it comes to computers.
  - waitwhat 15y ago

fleitz 15y ago

Our world is made of spit and bailer twine. The only difference is the skill at which one uses spit and bailer twine. IIRC LCD panels still have a manufacturing step involving rubbing wool on them, because rubbing wool on an LCD 'makes it work'. It's only those of us who see spit and bailer twine as all we need that can manage to turn a hacky property of silicon into NAND gates and from NAND gates an iPhone. If you still doubt it's spit and bailer twine, consider this picture: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/talk/transistor.gif http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/talk/transistor.gif The real professionals are those that can pair their twine with a slick marketing document.

StavrosK 15y ago
> It's only those of us who see spit and bailer twine as all we need that can manage to turn a hacky property of silicon into NAND gates and from NAND gates an iPhone. Are you seriously suggesting that the same train of thought that "rubs wool on LCDs because it 'makes them work'" was responsible for turning silicon into an iPhone?
- fleitz 15y ago
  Yes, there are those that would refuse to rub wool because it's a voodoo step. Those people will never turn silicon into iPhones because they let not knowing stand in the way of creating solutions. The first software that I wrote professionally was atrocious, hacky as hell, but it worked. I didn't let the fact that I didn't know how to program stand in the way of creating a solution. I probably could have spent a year reading books and writing practice software and the solution I came up with would have been much more elegant, but it wouldn't have mattered, they needed a solution today, not next year when I might have understood writing software at a much better level. I'm suggesting that knowing that something does work is far more important than knowing how it works, or why it works. Whilst I'm sure LCD manufactures have their scientists on understanding that part of the manufacturing process in the meantime they'll do their voodoo wool rub because it works. Maybe the wool rub with the plastic in the LCD disrupts the higgs field, who knows. Rubbing wool on an LCD because it works is an example of spit and bailer twine 'engineering'. Similarly, the first transistor was a massive hack, but a huge step forward for technology. I'm not advocating ignorance, I'm just saying that those who are ignorant can make huge steps forward, eg. the first guy who rubbed wool on an LCD. I'm sure the original facebook code had SQL statement embedded next to HTML; everyone knows it's a bad idea, but despite that you can put the foundations in place to make a huge business. The important thing is solving problems, not the elegance of the solution. Be a wright brother, make an airplane despite the fact that no one knows how. Solve a problem first, make it elegant second.

sek 15y ago

Waitwhat? Did you ever read the name of this site? It is called "Hacker" News. Learning Java at college doesn't change anything for the computer repair guy. I know what government means then, you have to hire a 4000$ guy to repair your computer who doesn't know how to do it.

waitwhat 15y ago
Why do you believe that there will be a single certification?
- sek 15y ago
  I don't said that, but just imagine everything that is done in the IT is only allowed to do by graduates. What degree is best for repairing computers? The best you can find is probably someone who does this out of joy and knows most of the current hardware.
  - waitwhat 15y ago
    just imagine everything that is done in the IT is only allowed to do by graduates. That's a terrible idea (and doesn't appear to be the solution that is being proposed in Malaysia.)

henrikschroder 15y ago

> Suggesting that this is a problem that the industry has had decades to solve on its own and has failed, and that it might now be time for the government to get involved is certainly not "insane" either. I remember ten years ago when people had certifications from either Sun or Microsoft. They were completely worthless, and the people that had them fell in one of three categories: 1) The ones who got them as a joke, but were actually competent 2) The ones who got them seriously, to try to hide their incompetence 3) IT consultants who did jobs for big, boring, government agencies, or big, boring corporate IT departments and got them out of necessity to score those contracts. I see no reason to believe that a government backed IT license wouldn't suffer the same fate, and since those licences were useless, the government one will be, and therefore the suggestion is insane. However, there are industry certifications that aren't worthless, I place high value on the top Cisco networking certifications, but it's also very important to note that that part of IT is the most like conventional engineering and client expectations are sane and bounded. I see a pattern. Do you?

jasonkester 15y ago
Ah yes, I remember them fondly. According to my MCSD records, Microsoft has certified that on three separate occasions in the early 2000's, I had an extra $100 in my pocket and an hour to kill. The scary thing was that you could pretty much take those exams cold if you worked with the technology at all, yet you'd meet these extremely nervous looking people in the waiting room at the testing center talking about how they hoped their 6-week prep class would pay off and they'd be able to pass this time.

_delirium 15y ago

The main difference I see is that computers are quite pervasive, so requiring professional licensing for everything computational would be a draconian step, while in other cases the licensing tends to be limited to "official" applications of the expertise, like signing off on a bridge design (though the legal field does overreach imo, with the cartel instincts kicking in and trying to get things like Nolo books banned). For example, should I need government licensing before I'm allowed to sell a $0.99 iPhone game? Is there any real public-interest reason for such a licensing regime? I tend to think certifying the safety/quality of products or systems is a better approach than certifying people. In the U.S., for example, it is not common (contrary to some countries) for engineers making consumer products (as opposed to civil infrastructure) to be licensed professional engineers. Instead, the products themselves are tested; for example, a toaster has to pass various safety tests before it can be sold.

ataggart 15y ago

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, we'll get government to fix it." Now they have two problems.

teyc 15y ago

As someone who lived in Malaysia, you have to understand the political climate there. University places are allocated based on racial quotas. Therefore, the people who are most concerned by this legislation are ethnic Chinese, who are more likely find themselves disqualified from doing certain work due to their inability to access higher education places. Alternatively, businesses may be forced to hire degree'd people to sign off work as theirs even if these people didn't do any of the programming.

golvin 15y ago
As a Malaysian, I beg to differ. It's true that we have to know the political climate, but the political climate you're looking at is only a small part of it. If this bill is passed, it will not only hurt people of a particular ethnicity, but everyone and the whole IT industry in the country. Given the track record of the incumbent political party, I strongly believe that most of the 'registered' people will be the people who are very close to them. The 'registered' people will make use of their status to get themselves into rent-seeking activities to take advantages of the companies/people who genuinely want to start up an IT company or involve in an IT project. This will in turn hurt the IT industry in Malaysia, which is already very weak due to current rent-seeking activities. What will happen eventually? More brain drain to the country, and not to forget a stagnant, if not backward-moving, IT industry in Malaysia. You only see the racial thing here because you are not looking at the bigger picture. It's true enough that the 'registered' people will most probably be ethnic Malays, but those are ethnic Malays who are close to the incumbent party. The majority of the ethnic Malay will get as little as the ethnic Chinese get. EDIT: > University places are allocated based on racial quotas. Therefore, the people who are most concerned by this legislation are ethnic Chinese, who are more likely find themselves disqualified from doing certain work due to their inability to access higher education places. It's true that qualified ethnic Chinese are having less chance to enter the public colleges, but most of them who can't get into public colleges go for private colleges or study abroad instead. In average, the literacy and qualification of ethnic Chinese is higher than other ethnics in Malaysia. So it's untrue to say that they are concerned due to their inability to access higher education. While there probably is an issue of education equality but the bill does not relate to the issue.

ajuc 15y ago

Regulation isn't always good. I'd say it's mostly bad. For example - in my country for more important contracts (like selling house, etc) there is a requirement, that apart from both sides signs, that "notariusz" (dictionary says it's notary public) will sign this contract. "Notariusz" is regulated job, there is constant amount of them (you have to pass very hard exam to become one, and mostly being a notariusz goes from father to son ,because others won't pass exams somehow). People are required to hire a notariusz to check important contracts, and notariusz gets percentage of contract worth for a work, that any intelligent people will do anyway (like checking ground register before buying a house, etc). I do think they are sometimes usefull, but why regulate them? Why are they mandatory? People that want to risk should be able to risk, people that want to be safe can pay more to be safe. In IT various schools and certificates exists, so people can prove, that they are good enough to do some job. There are bad schools and better schools and certificates, why do you think state will be better at assesing people qualifications than private company (which sole buisness model will depend on being good at that). Why is state always trying to do others work? I'd much prefer free market in such matters. The same goes for engineers, architects, etc. Just make sure people are responsible for their errors, and there would be cheap but risky architects, and expansive but safe ones. And insurance companies would require you to hire these with respectable certificates. No need for state to mess with this.

waitwhat 15y ago
I'm curious how you stand on the regulation of insurance companies. Do you think this is something that the free market should also take care of? And what about (retail) banks?
- ajuc 15y ago
  Retail banks are special case, because they are given special government permission to multiply money, and if abused, this priviledge can make the whole economy crash. So banks that lend more money than they have should be controlled by someone. And banks are only a few in a market, big, and can easily ignore new companies wanting to certificate them, making these certificates worthless. So there is need to regulate banks. With workers it's not a problem, so there is no need for state to get involved. Regarding insurance companies - I don't think there is inherent need for regulation. A few broken insurance companies won't destroy economy. For their clients it will be a problem, but that's also true for other activities we currently don't regulate. At first, insurance companies wasn't regulated, and they somehow managed to work. Now people expects state to regulate them, so we trust unknown insurance companies too much, so if we were to stop with regulation, many people will lose. But if we did not started regulating them before - this would not be a problem.

learc83 15y ago

Who are these "back street 'computer repair' guys", and "dodgy chancers", and where are you seeing them? If there were some sort of magic certification regime that would guarantee, a programmer knew what he was doing, you can be certain such a certificate would already exist. You also seem to have just ignored all the problems that exist with mandatory doctors and lawyers guilds. For example the AMA hasn't allowed any new Medical schools to open in the US since the early 80s. There is a reason doctors and lawyers are so expensive, it's because their guilds have an incentive to keep them artificially scarce. Right now IT is one of the few professional fields where you can essential apprentice your way to a job. I can guarantee that were we to establish a mandatory governing body, a degree would be required. Hell, in Florida they require Interior Decorators to have an approved degree (very narrow definition of approved degree too, I might add). In Georgia (where I live), the board who overseas General Contractors, ruled they have $1,000,000 in assets in addition to the insurance they were already required to have to cover damages. The only reason it was passed was to protect the jobs of established contractors, who were being forced to compete with lower wage Mexican labor. That kind of thing will happen to the IT industry if you regulate it similarly.