I don't think 'response-time' and 'scalability' are merely differentiated degrees of a given scalar, either. Scalability is a multi-dimensional measure, which

I don't think 'response-time' and 'scalability' are merely differentiated degrees of a given scalar, either. Scalability is a multi-dimensional measure, which incorporates 'response-time'. "professionalizing the field of web development" I think this touches on a key differentiator of our chosen profession. Nearly every other (industrial) professional field (with the exception of Architecture, which shares many of the characteristics of Software "engineering" in sharing a hazy boundary between 'art' and 'science') has a tiered body of workers that rests on a fairly commoditized implementation base. (Consider your precious laptop. Put together by workers with high-school education.) I don't see how we can "professionalize" [software] development (in terms of actual producers of ubiquitous software artifacts) unless we have programs writing programs.