5 ms·

>>doctors make mistakes that kill people all the time Yes, but they make a lot FEWER such mistakes than would people who could not pass the exams and maintain

by toss1 2mo ago

>>doctors make mistakes that kill people all the time Yes, but they make a lot FEWER such mistakes than would people who could not pass the exams and maintain a license. The standard is not perfection; the standard is as good as practical and better than if nothing were done. Medical licensing definitely meets both of those criteria. Unless you are arguing that anyone who takes a ten-week "Medical Bootcamp" is ready to be a surgeon you would trust to operate on you or your children? Would you also be happy to commute to work over a bridge designed by someone with a 10-wk bootcamp in civil engineering? You have it exactly backwards — Credentialing RAISES the skill floor. It does not raise it to perfection, and "Certificates" in the computing industry are a joke, but real medical or engineering credentials certainly raise the floor higher than the software floor

groundzeros2015 2mo ago
> they make a lot FEWER such mistakes than would people who could not pass the exams and maintain a license. I don’t know if that’s true. More schooling does not mean more trustworthy or careful doctors. And I suspect some negative trait selection. Milton Friedman wrote a PhD dissertation on the topic of medicine that I invite you to take a look at. > than if nothing were done. The alternative is not to invite people who have no experience to build bridges or perform surgeries. There are no credentials to work at Google. But you’ll find very skilled and capable people running large projects. Investors want capable people. Those people are vetted through their reputation in their professional circles. > Would you also be happy to commute to work over a bridge designed by someone with a 10-wk bootcamp in civil engineering? No. But I would like to drive over bridges from people with 30 years of bridge building experience over a 4-7 year degree. If you live in Europe you drive over bridges built without credentials all the time. > Credentialing RAISES the skill floor. Correct. That’s my mistake. The point is if cut off the bottom 20th percentile the field doesn’t get much better. Those people aren’t trusted leaders anyway. You do however lose a significant amount of upside. Including countless top performers from non traditional backgrounds, which is characteristic of computer hackers. You can maybe argue that the general public, unlike a corporation is not capable of vetting their own doctor, so the government classified those options for them. And that’s reasonable. But that does not apply at all to software engineers who don’t solicit public work. I have all the traditional credentials and this is not a projection of my own career.
- dolni 2mo ago
  > The alternative is not to invite people who have no experience to build bridges or perform surgeries. You state this so confidently, like every person who walks through the door to interview will be 100% honest about their level of experience. Have you ever interviewed? Nobody _wants_ a software engineer on their team who is awful. Sometimes they slip through the cracks for a variety of reasons.
  - groundzeros2015 2mo ago
    Cold call job interviews are primarily for people early in their career to get established in the field. You don’t hire someone that way to lead the Golden Gate Bridge. How do you think companies hire for key roles like CEOs?
- Silhouette 2mo ago
  I appreciate your positivity. However it is difficult to reconcile your argument with the reality that executives at tech companies frequently behave in ways that satisfy the investors but clearly do not produce good results for the people using their technology. Indeed in numerous cases today the technology is openly hostile to its own users' interests. The regulations are there to protect the users (or customers or clients or patients). If anything they are there to prevent protecting the profit margins of the businesses - because hiring people to pump up the profits is often in conflict with the other objective.
  - groundzeros2015 2mo ago
    What would credentialing software engineers do to curtail leadership incentive problems? Hardware technology jobs have some of these credentials and are part of that system.
    - Silhouette 2mo ago
      What would credentialing software engineers do to curtail leadership incentive problems? The same as in other regulated professions. It would give the people on the front line who can see the consequences of the corner cutting an effective right to say "No, we're not doing this user hostile thing". This would be a significant barrier because it wouldn't be legal to ship software without the required professional approval and the professionals would be heavily incentivised not to sign off any corner cutting because they would be personally and professionally responsible for any adverse consequences if they did.

by toss1 2mo ago

groundzeros2015 2mo ago

> they make a lot FEWER such mistakes than would people who could not pass the exams and maintain a license. I don’t know if that’s true. More schooling does not mean more trustworthy or careful doctors. And I suspect some negative trait selection. Milton Friedman wrote a PhD dissertation on the topic of medicine that I invite you to take a look at. > than if nothing were done. The alternative is not to invite people who have no experience to build bridges or perform surgeries. There are no credentials to work at Google. But you’ll find very skilled and capable people running large projects. Investors want capable people. Those people are vetted through their reputation in their professional circles. > Would you also be happy to commute to work over a bridge designed by someone with a 10-wk bootcamp in civil engineering? No. But I would like to drive over bridges from people with 30 years of bridge building experience over a 4-7 year degree. If you live in Europe you drive over bridges built without credentials all the time. > Credentialing RAISES the skill floor. Correct. That’s my mistake. The point is if cut off the bottom 20th percentile the field doesn’t get much better. Those people aren’t trusted leaders anyway. You do however lose a significant amount of upside. Including countless top performers from non traditional backgrounds, which is characteristic of computer hackers. You can maybe argue that the general public, unlike a corporation is not capable of vetting their own doctor, so the government classified those options for them. And that’s reasonable. But that does not apply at all to software engineers who don’t solicit public work. I have all the traditional credentials and this is not a projection of my own career.

dolni 2mo ago
> The alternative is not to invite people who have no experience to build bridges or perform surgeries. You state this so confidently, like every person who walks through the door to interview will be 100% honest about their level of experience. Have you ever interviewed? Nobody _wants_ a software engineer on their team who is awful. Sometimes they slip through the cracks for a variety of reasons.
- groundzeros2015 2mo ago
  Cold call job interviews are primarily for people early in their career to get established in the field. You don’t hire someone that way to lead the Golden Gate Bridge. How do you think companies hire for key roles like CEOs?
Silhouette 2mo ago
I appreciate your positivity. However it is difficult to reconcile your argument with the reality that executives at tech companies frequently behave in ways that satisfy the investors but clearly do not produce good results for the people using their technology. Indeed in numerous cases today the technology is openly hostile to its own users' interests. The regulations are there to protect the users (or customers or clients or patients). If anything they are there to prevent protecting the profit margins of the businesses - because hiring people to pump up the profits is often in conflict with the other objective.
- groundzeros2015 2mo ago
  What would credentialing software engineers do to curtail leadership incentive problems? Hardware technology jobs have some of these credentials and are part of that system.
  - Silhouette 2mo ago
    What would credentialing software engineers do to curtail leadership incentive problems? The same as in other regulated professions. It would give the people on the front line who can see the consequences of the corner cutting an effective right to say "No, we're not doing this user hostile thing". This would be a significant barrier because it wouldn't be legal to ship software without the required professional approval and the professionals would be heavily incentivised not to sign off any corner cutting because they would be personally and professionally responsible for any adverse consequences if they did.