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The Australian Computer Society should be disbanded
- dtalic 14y agoThis reflects pretty poorly on a country and government which supposedly is trying to shift from a "get stuff out the ground and sell it" to a knowledge economy...
- feralmoan 14y agoMoving from commodity based, bricks and mortar investment focus to an abstract, information industry innovating mindset is a huge paradigm shift for most Australians. It has unfortunately been popular mantra that banking, real-estate, commodities or finance-oriented (to fund commodity) business is the bread and butter for a happy, future-proof life and not easy to break. Many people have done well under that mantra, by island standards. To put it another way, as a country of very few people, those with the power to control the narrative can, and do so, in servicing that agenda. It's shameful. John Howard's pontifications of Australia 'punching above its weight' were a painful misrepresentation and yet many continue to buy into such impoverished thinking.
- jacques_chester 14y agoDifferent countries can be good at different things.
- _dark_matter_ 14y agoAll that about the pamphlet, not a big deal. But the payments at the end for accreditation? That seems to be a worse offense. Of course, if companies are only accepting applicants accredited by the ACS, they must be missing out on SOME people.
- djt 14y agoI think the main problem is you need the accreditation if you want to apply to immigrate. As I understand it even if you are from overseas and study at a Australian university you would still need to get the accreditation to apply for a visa.
- jms 14y agoIt seems to me this is one of the key functions of the organisation - to act as a pseudo governmental entity to asses qualification and experience claims relating to IT. I believe it also exists to provide a framework around CPD (continuing professional development), but I'm not sure how relevant this is to our industry.
- jpatokal 14y agoPaying to vet the qualifications of people who have studied and worked overseas is not unreasonable -- but having to pay them $425 to certify that an accredited Australian university's CS diploma is, in fact, an accredited Australian university's CS diploma is ludicrous.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- ajtaylor 14y agoI was concerned about this very thing when I was preparing to immigrate to Australia. In the end, because I had a job offer I got in on a 457 (good for 4 years) and didn't have to pay the ACS' accreditation fee. Even better, in 6 months when I apply for Permanent Residence I still don't have to pay the ACS because I've been working here for 2 years.
- onethree 14y agoi can't say i know of many companies that exclude people because theyre not members of the ACS. I work for an investment bank, and i have friends from uni who work everywhere from the IT department at one of our supermarket chains to the big 4 audit firms, and i don't know of any who actually have ACS accreditation
- Wingman4l7 14y agoI would take it a step further and bet that none of those employers have even heard of the ACS, unless they've tried to hire people and sponsor them with a skilled worker visa.
- damian2000 14y agoI think the ACS is irrelevant to most developers working in Australia. I've always had the impression its elitist and/or aimed at IT management.
- throwaway2048 14y agoAccreditation is common in many industries in Australia, it's basically a huge racket. To legally do any wiring work at all it must be done by an accredited electrician, not merely inspected by one as in most countries. in fact most home improvements of any kind must be performed by an accredited tradesman. add to this the laws that state any home improvement must bring the entire house up to current building codes, it's a recipe for massive expenses that go straight into the pockets accredited tradesman. This essentially prevents any person that owns older property from doing any upgrades, or major repairs at all, because the massive cost of upgrading the entire house at once is completely out of reach for most people. this leads to urban decay and property abandonment on a massive scale. with the recent push by parties such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google to have registered developer programs complete with code signing, be very wary of industry wide pushes to introduce a similar thing for programmers. The IEEE has attempted to introduce the idea for years. you can be sure that soon after introduction laws forcing accreditation for many types of positions would shortly follow, as would subsequent rises in membership fees and requirements. Not to mention the threat of only a certified developer being able to legally write code at all. this situation already exists in many engineering disciplines. with things like secure boot and locked bootloaders and signed code, it is almost a technical triviality. want to know how general purpose computing will be killed? it will be via initiatives such as this.
- tomcorrigan 14y ago> laws that state any home improvement must bring the entire house up to current building codes This is patently false > this leads to urban decay and property abandonment on a massive scale Australia does not have property abandonment nor urban decay on a massive scale. Go to Detroit to witness such things.
- jacques_chester 14y agoRent control is usually one cause of urban blight. We don't have that in Australia.
- throwaway2048 14y ago
- ecdavis 14y agoI'm not particularly fond of the ACS. I was provided with membership by my work and started getting a large volume of email from them. Unsubscribing from their mailing lists was a complete ordeal[1], and it was impossible to completely unsubscribe online - I had to call someone at their office to get taken off a mailing list. In the end I gave up and filtered their emails instead. Despite the fact that my membership has since lapsed, I am still receiving their newsletter and invitations to various events that, as a non-member, I can't attend. [1] I had to log in to their account management system, which involved finding a randomly generated username and password that had never been sent to me.
- Cub3 14y agoExactly the same experience but instead of emails (filtered out) I get a ton of snail mail asking me to re-join / attend events, its probably been 2-3 years since i've been a member and I still get the mail forwarded to me from my old address
- chris_wot 14y agoYou can contact the privacy commissioner if the wont remove you from their mailing lists. What sort of events do they promote? Curious. Edit: oh, but only if there was a piracy commissioner...
- Schwolop 14y agoFor those unaware, this polemic is by Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer. He's been very outspoken in the Australian media about over-regulation of industry and outdated think tanks stifling innovation by recommending tactics that reinforce the status quo.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- mrmagooey 14y agoI forgot that the ACS even existed, just let it fade into obscurity on its own terms.
- teflonhook 14y agoThe problem is this is the professional body that determines what we teach in universities, that promotes the technology industry as a whole and who decides who we let into the country on a skilled visa.
- mylittlepony 14y agoteflonhook 2 hours ago | link [dead] The problem is this is the professional body that determines what we teach in universities, that promotes the technology industry as a whole and who decides who we let into the country on a skilled visa.
- jacques_chester 14y agoI basically joined the ACS because it's there and I figured I ought to. They gave me a post-nominal: CT. If I want the next grade up -- CP -- I will need to take thousands of dollars of synergising-outside-the-box courses. Basically the ACS isn't really for software engineers. It's for middle management. I won't be renewing. (I might renew my ACM/IEEE memberships).
- daemin 14y agoI briefly thought about joining the ACS, but really no one that I've worked with has paid for membership (I think one person had won a membership). In software it is just not needed, especially since a lot of the people I have worked with have other degrees outside the areas of electrical/electronic engineering and computer science.
- beamso 14y agoI never joined. The ACS was not referred to in a positive manner when I was at university.
- zik 14y agoI joined the ACE some years ago for the same reason - because it seemed like a good idea to be a member of a professional organisation. I also didn't renew after I realised what a joke the ACS really was.
- ra 14y agoTotally. I've only once heard the ACS mentioned outside of the immigration context, and that was a senior manager in a bank asking why we (his best tech staff) weren't members. I'm not sure if (Insert nationality here) Computer Societies are as irrelevant in other countries, but in Australia I'm pretty sure it serves no useful role other than in immigration. So, if that's the case, they have no basis for qualification to determine the merit of an IT skills based residency application. A self-proclaimed peak body.
- jacques_chester 14y agoWell I wanted to join the IEEE-CS and ACM because those are the legit world leaders. I've harboured that ambition ever since I was a teenager and I read the first edition of Code Complete. But that too has turned out to be bit of a farce. The real value is in their digital libraries and it is amazing how carefully they segment it to make it hard to get access to anything useful without paying frankly stupid amounts of money.
- jacques_chester 14y agoI think I can explain the Electrical Engineering thing. A few years ago the ACS geared up to join some sort of peak body for professions. They took the view that they should represent all software professionals of any kind. Then Engineers Australia put in a competing claim for jurisdiction over software engineers. The scoundrels. I remember this because I was a student member at the time (hey, free BBQs) and they sent a sob story email to all their members about it. Basically everybody is pissing on everybody's curtains.
- jedmeyers 14y agoTechnically you can get your profession recognized by Engineers Australia even if you are a software engineer. You will not get the most relevant code for your profession though, and most probably will not be able to get a visa in the end. However it worked for me back in 2010.
- drakeandrews 14y agoCompletely irrelevant, but I must say I like the phrase "everybody is pissing on everyone's curtains".
- arethuza 14y agoEven more irrelevantly, I'm rather impressed at how quickly Google has indexed this. When searching for that, rather splendid, phrase this page ranks top.
- indecision 14y agoI was recently involved in an ACS "Re-accreditation" review for my University which I graduated from in 2011. It was clear from the outset that the whole thing was a farce - to be re-accredited required the ACS to ask past students generic questions (such as "How important is ethics to an IT Professional") and for us to give canned answers. While the university didn't explicitly tell us to give the 'expected' answers to ACS questions, it was strongly implied that we were expected to represent the virtues that the ACS "teaches". It is in the universities interests to advertise that their IT degrees include ACS accreditation (despite no Australian IT employers I know of giving a damn about it) and it is in the interest of ACS for the university to keep paying the exorbitant fees. If anything, I feel that ACS accrediation is detrimental to the students as it requires the university to include such useful courses as "Ethics for the IT Professional" in their degrees. While being ethical is obviously important to any professional, this is time that could be spent learning real skills instead.
- daemin 14y agoI did one of these a few years ago and it seemed like quite a formality, they asked vague questions about topics related to professionalism rather than any technical skill. While I can understand that a professional body would want to ensure that people acted ethically and in good faith, I would think that it would be wiser to ensure that people graduating from technical, engineering related, and detail oriented degrees were just that. That way having an ACS seal of approval on a degree would carry some sort of weight towards the technical quality of the person, and hence would actually mean something. Maybe it's the spaces and people I work with, but no one that I have worked with is actually a member of the ACS, despite being in industry for almost a decade.
- jacques_chester 14y agoThe reason they hammer on the Code of Ethics is because that's what other professions have. They need to show that there's some Code that could be made enforceable by legislation. It's part of the bigger plan to lever the ACS into the same role that the law societies or the AMA enjoy.
- Wingman4l7 14y agoThe general (low) opinion of the ACS on Whirlpool (AU broadband / IT forums) is that they exist solely to make money from rubber-stamping IT accreditations for skilled worker visas.
- verelo 14y agoI'd love to hear Matt's views on TAFE, i think accreditation has a very important place in our society (mainly because i got very sick of uneducated morons charging people for fixing computers, writing bad code...etc) Anyway, the fact that Matt is complaining about fees and then is happy to be associated with the Singularity University that chargs $25k for a course (http://apply2013.singularityu.org/res/p/faq/ http://apply2013.singularityu.org/res/p/faq/) makes me wonder if hes just mad that they cant compete with courses provided by organizations such as TAFE. In general, this all makes me mad. Matt just seems very outspoken and is giving Australia a bad rep in general.
- beamso 14y agoI believe Matt is strongly pro accreditation. http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/fierce-debate-is-uni-an-investment-in-the-future-or-a-waste-of-time-20111114-1neei.html http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/fierce-debate-is...
- Schwolop 14y agoMore so he's pro-theoretical grounding in a subject, because with the right background it's easy to get up to speed in the practicalities. It's a bit unpleasant reading these articles (Barrie's and the original by Harper) now, as I currently work for Bigcommerce, and turned down an offer from Freelancer. Ironically, Freelancer offerred me about 40% less salary because at the time I had a theoretical background and almost zero practical experience.
- beamso 14y agoIf you like, turn on 'showdead' in your HN preferences. Matt appears to have responded to your original post directly from a hellbanned account (teflonhook).
- teflonhook 14y agolol. anyway to 'undead' yourself?
- Wingman4l7 14y agoI find it completely ridiculous -- how on Earth could a the ACS hope to apply any sort of standard evaluation to a CS / IT degree earned in any of a dozen countries, from any of a thousand universities (with attendant varying degree requirements and relative differences in course difficulty), not to mention evaluating self-taught skills or industry experience in hundreds of specialties. A programmer is not a tradesman. No IT employer in Australia that I've communicated with has ever mentioned the ACS in regards to qualifications, not once -- I would be surprised if any even know it exists, unless they have worked with sponsoring skilled worker visas.
- stephen_g 14y agoNo IT employer in Australia that I've communicated with has ever mentioned the ACS in regards to qualifications, not once -- I would be surprised if any even know it exists Same - I've been working as a software engineer in Australia for almost five years now, had never heard of them!
- lessnonymous 14y agoWe know they exist. They're just irrelevant. It says a lot if you prefer to tell us you're an ACS member rather than that you write code for fun at home.
- aohtsab 14y agoThis is interesting to hear. I'm in the process of applying for an Australian visa (no CS degree). To get an independent visa, I need 2 more years of work experience, before I qualify to apply to have my skills tested by ACS in very specific (and almost esoteric) programming knowledge. And this is only the first step to apply for an 'invitation to apply' for a visa. What are my job prospects as a US software developer seeking to emigrate to Australia? How often do Australian companies sponsor visas for overseas workers?
- chris_wot 14y ago
- tnuc 14y agoIf you don't like the Australian Computer Society accreditation, you could could always become a Microsoft Certified Professional. Which one is the bigger joke?
- damian2000 14y agoTotally different. MCSD and the like are actually ok for training in very specific areas of study, assuming you don't cheat of course.
- i386 14y agoYou would probably get something out of being a MCP. There just isn't a good reason to be a member of ACS - at all.
- beilabs 14y agoHere's my experience with the Australian Computer Society. Having studied abroad (Ireland), I was required to send in all of my exam results for my B.Sc, H.Dip & M.Sc. as well as a reference from each employer that I worked with in my field (Software Engineering). For the visa I was applying for at the time it required that I was certified by the ACS, have a minimum of 5 years experience. The process took 6 months for a single sheet of paper saying I was qualified for my profession! Due to this, my visa was submitted quite a while later than I initially planned and that took a further 12 months. 18 months all up waiting for my residency. They took $600 for what was an open and shut case. They never contacted any of my references or colleges enquiring about my past experience or grades. The whole thing is a complete sham and is just another way of grabbing money off those who need visas. The entire visa system in Australia is in bad need of restructuring and left a very sour taste in my mouth.
- ghshephard 14y agoCompare that to a Canadian coming into the United States as a "Computer Systems Analyst" - Show up at the airport 20 minutes earlier than you normally would, give them a one-page letter describing your employer, what you'll be doing, where you'll be working. Include a either a 2 year diploma + 2 (3?) years of work experience or a 4 year degree. 10 minutes later you have a Visa good for three years. Normally one expects lots of bureaucracy when dealing with the government, but the US/Canada have really streamlined their NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) down to next-to-no hoops to jump through.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- moondowner 14y agoOff topic, but 'nafta' means petroleum in a good deal of languages, e.g. http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D1%84%D1%82%D1%8C http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D1%84%D1%82%D1%8C
- phreeza 14y ago
- lessnonymous 14y agoFormer employer bought me an ACS membership one year (mainly so we could get access to their members in the hope of selling our services). The entire membership seems to be guys who built a homebrew PC in the 70s and haven't showered since, or international students who believe so much in their education they're fooled into believing they need the ACS to rubber stamp their degree. They're totally irrelevant in today's "but can you write good code?" hiring practice. The ACS preys on uninformed international students. (Who, in interviews, all seem to want to work for Cisco in five years time! Are they taught this by the ACS?)
- mylittlepony 14y agoI'm sorry Australia, you are not getting me as a skilled worker (I thought you were in need of IT experts with fluent english). No seriously, I stumbled upon this issue some time ago, and that wasn't the first or last paywall. You have to pay for everything, even if you end up being rejected (not that I couldn't afford it, but f*ck that). Kind of offtopic, but I also saw they have some serious discrimination issues (it's not even about skin color, which I don't care since I'm white, they just don't want foreigners). Back to Google Maps to find a different destination.
- dbaupp 14y agoJust out of interest, what are the discrimination issues? (I'm Australian so I don't ever get an outsider's perspective, but it'd be nice to have some understanding of what others think of us.)
- mylittlepony 14y agoWell I was watching videos trying to catch the Australian accent, which I found to be very cool... One video led to another, and somehow I ended up watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp6J6PF47CM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp6J6PF47CM From another angle, and longer explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsWhGBgbUsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsWhGBgbUsc I have never seen something like that in real life, I couldn't believe it.
- jpatokal 14y agoThere's 22 million people in Australia, don't assume a few idiots reflect the entire country. Neither my wife nor I were born here, but as parents with a mixed-race kid and experience of living on four continents, we haven't found a better place to bring him up yet.
- mylittlepony 14y agoIndeed, but to be fair, 22 million is nothing, especially for a country so big as Australia. Also, it wasn't just one crazy person or crazy group. They were random people in a bus, and they had the same anger and hate. Wtf was that? I'm curious, where in Australia do you live if I may ask?
- lancewiggs 14y agoFirstly - come to New Zealand. There is long list of ICT/Electronics and Communications roles, including all professional engineers, on the long Term Skills Shortage list. Additionally ICT and creative indistries are deemed long term growth areas. This means it's much easier to get into NZ - either for working or for immigration through our points system.[1] On the ground the answer is yes, we really need more devs and creatives. Requirements are generally degrees and a little experience. Secondly, it's telling that we have yet to see a response from ACS on this page. Speaks volumes. [1] http://www.immigration.govt.nz/pointsindicator/ http://www.immigration.govt.nz/pointsindicator/ follow for Absolute Skills Shortage and Future Growth Areas.
- jacques_chester 14y agoAustralia also has a points system and we too have various software professions on a high-value list. http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/_pdf/sol-schedule1.pdf http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/_pdf/sol-schedule1.pdf Assessed by ... the ACS.
- mrmincent 14y agoas an aussie CS grad looking for work, what is a good NZ job search site to check out? I'd love to work in NZ for a while.
- Evernoob 14y agoYeah but then you have to live in New Zealand...
- edgar_di 14y agoJust payed the required $450 to have my Australian Master degree accredited by the ACS, that was only after I had spent $60.000+ in tuition fees in two years. only to see that the temporary residency application fee rose from $315 to $1250, (almost 400% increase in only one year)... :( some much money. I truly believe they have gone too far and soon they will start missing all the money from the international student and skilled migrants. (sorry for any grammar mistakes)
- buyx 14y agoHaving witnessed the hoops that 2 colleagues with significant experience, skills and strong qualifications- both had university degrees, and were white (meaning that they received a high quality education) -had to jump through to migrate from South Africa to Australia, I suspected ACS was more of a protection racket. This seems to validate this opinion. One gave up, the other went to New Zealand.
- 13hours 14y agoI'm just staying in South Africa.
- shaurz 14y agoMy rule of thumb is that anyone who uses the term "ICT" is talking out of their backside.
- mattbarrie 14y agoMatt here. Turns out I've been talking to myself for the last year with a hellbanned account! lol. The ACS just issued a media release: http://www.acs.org.au/news-and-media/news-and-media-releases/2013/acs-media-statement http://www.acs.org.au/news-and-media/news-and-media-releases... Delimiter has posted an article as well: http://delimiter.com.au/2013/02/01/morons-freelancer-ceo-wants-acs-disbanded/ http://delimiter.com.au/2013/02/01/morons-freelancer-ceo-wan... I find it humorous that the ACS's response is "the ACS Foundation has nothing do to with the ACS". It just happens to be an organisation they set up and uses their name that their members promote. Some interesting emails came in overnight: "The ACS is run by a whole bunch of accountants and lawyers who can't believe their luck that people associate them with the technology industry" "You’re right that the ACS has to go. Back in 2001 I contacted the ACS to discuss some policy things and was horrified to discover the “experts” I was talking to were nothing more than accountants. Later they elected a lawyer as president, and then a recruiter, prompting me to publicly condemn the ACS as a fake during the period 2004 – 2006. The ACS is actually an anti-professional organisation. Their agenda is not to promote computer science or engineering expertise, but rather to allow pretenders to hide in the generic vagueness of “ICT Professional.” They actually work to devalue real expertise, since engineers and computer scientists pose a threat to accountants, MBAs and lawyers who want to claim membership of the technology professsions. I think the solution has to be a formal inquiry into regulation of the IT professions, with a view to government stepping in and, as you put it, disbanding the ACS. At the moment, the ACS has insinuated itself too strongly into formal regulation. Simply starting a rival organisation for software engineers, say, would not work. Government has to dissolve existing ACS influence and leave the way open for new specialist organisations."
- CyberFonic 14y agoI've been working in Australian IT since the late 1970's and never once did anybody ask whether I had ACS membership. When I graduated from uni, I looked at the ACS requirements and they were all to support the status quo of the 1960's EDP era. So I wouldn't have been accepted even if I tried. Even though I had the best computer engineering qualifications available at the time. Over the years the ACS members I have had the misfortune of working with couldn't program their way out of a wet paper bag, not even using COBOL or RPG. Of course, as other comments here indicate, they abided by the Peter Principle and had been promoted to their level of utter dismal incompetence to muddle management.
- mattbarrie 14y agoAnyone care to submit an entry? :) http://www.freelancer.com/contest/T-shirt-Design-for-Australian-Computer-Society-13298-byentry-1044584.html http://www.freelancer.com/contest/T-shirt-Design-for-Austral...
- profdgrant 14y agoIn New Zealand just now, there is a national scandal over a system called Novopay. Google this to get the details. It is a payroll system for NZ teachers. It is complex, developed by an Australian firm, and full of errors. The errors in operation are such that teachers get the wrong pay, pay the wrong tax, and even get no pay on occasions. Public servants have been sacked, and government ministers are in trouble. It is because we need to avoid such problems that we need software developers who can develop systems that actually meet their specifications, tested to provide assurance that they do. This is why we need certification of professionals (of their competency, and with expectation that they will behave ethically when there are problems with systems), and why we need accreditation of qualifications that provides external confidence that educational institutions are producing graduates who are of a standard that they can be expected to grow into competent professionals. Most "developed" countries have schemes aimed at this - imperfect, and certainly needing improvement - and most are managed by professional societies - the organisations comprised of IT professionals who give voluntarily of their time to serve their colleagues and their profession, to no personal benefit. In Australia this is the case with the ACS, which sees itself as the guardian of professional standards. Hence ACS provides certification of professionals (the CP scheme), and accredits university courses in IT, according to international standards. In both certification and accreditation, ACS serves as the Australian implementor of international standards that are widely accepted throughout the world, and particularly in our Asia-Pacific region. If you are interested, google "IP3" and "Seoul Accord" to find out more. ACS may be imperfect in that role (this is inevitable), but seeks to improve, continuously, and always aims to respond to identified genuine problems with the ways it conducts its business. In order that the profession of IT should mature, and deliver outcomes acceptable to society at large, ACS has a goal that increasing numbers of professionals should become certified, and believes that ultimately mandatory certification of at very least senior professionals, charged with managing major projects or leading the design of technical solutions, should be established (paralleling other professions, which, over time, have been recognised as being of such critical importance that competence should be certified). There will always be those who prefer to avoid any kind of regulation or oversight, any kind of distinction that identifies those in whom greater trust can be placed. But the Novopay system in NZ is just the latest example of medium to large systems worldwide, with critical roles in wider society, whose failure illustrates the need for software systems developers to lift their game, and which begs the introduction of quite stringent requirements on senior developers and managers who claim competence to develop such systems. As the Vice President of ACS charged with oversight of certification and accreditation, I am always keen to have input from wise professionals who believe they can improve the way we conduct our business. If you have considered input, then please contact me so that we may benefit from your wisdom. Professor Doug Grant FACS CP ACS Vice President (Membership Boards)