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> software engineering aught to be a licensed profession, similar to civil engineers, medical professionals, or lawyers. My experience with civil engineers and

> software engineering aught to be a licensed profession, similar to civil engineers, medical professionals, or lawyers. My experience with civil engineers and lawyers is many of them aren't worth spit. Licensing is not a magical cert that proves competence. BTW, if you hire a lawyer in WA state, be sure to ask if they passed the bar. The state has been licensing lawyers who don't pass it.

cucumber3732842 2mo ago
Competence is tangential. They're happy to allow the idiots, so long as they aren't so stupid it makes the organization or the government look bad. The way licensing fundamentally works is industry basically strikes a bargain with government to it's benefit. Government lets the licensing organization run a supply cartel and collect protection money (dues, test fees, whatever) so long as they promise to enforce (low) minimum standards along the way. Government gives licensees favorable treatment in court (statutory limits to liability, licensed professionals opinions are more equal than average peasants, etc, etc), etc. And all this stands so long as they do whatever the government's rules say (to the detriment of the customers). And of course the professionals make money hand over fist (or at least more than they're worth) in the process because the licensing organization constrains supply. Society gets just enough scraps to provide the political will to get it done and keep it rolling (the low minimum standards).
jambalaya8 2mo ago
...or you wind up with people that know the same answers to the same questions; great for a job repeatedly answering the same questions, pointless for jobs requiring original approaches, beyond a certain point. In law, you'd better know the law... but there are so many ways to work in tech, many with no appropriate titles, many pockets of it which would not survive a certification path.

cucumber3732842 2mo ago

Competence is tangential. They're happy to allow the idiots, so long as they aren't so stupid it makes the organization or the government look bad. The way licensing fundamentally works is industry basically strikes a bargain with government to it's benefit. Government lets the licensing organization run a supply cartel and collect protection money (dues, test fees, whatever) so long as they promise to enforce (low) minimum standards along the way. Government gives licensees favorable treatment in court (statutory limits to liability, licensed professionals opinions are more equal than average peasants, etc, etc), etc. And all this stands so long as they do whatever the government's rules say (to the detriment of the customers). And of course the professionals make money hand over fist (or at least more than they're worth) in the process because the licensing organization constrains supply. Society gets just enough scraps to provide the political will to get it done and keep it rolling (the low minimum standards).

jambalaya8 2mo ago

...or you wind up with people that know the same answers to the same questions; great for a job repeatedly answering the same questions, pointless for jobs requiring original approaches, beyond a certain point. In law, you'd better know the law... but there are so many ways to work in tech, many with no appropriate titles, many pockets of it which would not survive a certification path.