4 ms·

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 (

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have completely different requirements, where the language-du-jour is constantly changing, where best practices are outdated in a few years, and where the only way to survive is to constantly educate yourself?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.

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.