Is it Art? WAS:Re: How to talk like a programmer
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From: Howard Brazee on 1 Jun 2010 15:38 On 1 Jun 2010 17:36:38 GMT, billg999(a)cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: >> What kind of peer review does someone have to become a Chef? I am >> unfamiliar with such. > >Other Chefs. What is the process that a chef has to go through to get certified by the other chefs? >That's why there are Chefs and Cooks. I'm a great cook but >I will never be a Chef. You start out by going to an acredited Culinary >Institute and after graduation you apprentice and eventually, if your >good, and lucky, you get to become a Chef. Accredited culinary schools certainly help you get a job at particular type of restaurants. But it is your boss who decides whether you should be called a chef or not. And that boss could have hired a cook/chef without that degree - just as my boss could have hired a programmer without a degree. >How about Architects? They have one of the toughest fields to get >into (I know first hand cause my daughter tried!!) Some craft unions are more powerful than others. >> If a professional cook does not choose to call himself a chef is he >> still a professional? > >Yeah, a professional cook. But not a Chef. So, he's a professional either way. (Isn't that what this discussion is about?). >>>So >>>too with doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants and most other >>>serious professions. >> >> What do you call the person who graduated at the bottom of his medical >> school class? > >The same thing you call a guy with a PHD in Philosophy. And without >the blessing of the AMA and a licensing board in the state he chooses >to set up shop they both have the same chance of practicing medicine. And the guy who graduates on the bottom of his class gets certified by the AMA and the licensing board. >>>And yet, an kid with a Linux box in his mom's >>>basement is suddenly a "computer professional". >> >> Is he making a living from it? > >Most of them don't. The ones that do are by definition "professionals". >> And yet, a kid who doesn't make it past AA baseball is a "sports >> professional". > >If by AA you mean Minor League, yes. So what? There are 100 times more >who don't ever get to play again after they finish school. Who got to >decide if they made the cut? They don't get to make the decision that >they are Professional Ballplayers themselves. They try to get a job >doing it and someone (depending on the sport, lots of differnt people) >decides if they are Professional calibre or not. Their bosses decide. Not some certification board. If their bosses decide they are worth money, they are professionals. >>>What is wrong with >>>this picture? Not sure? take a good look at the industry around >>>us. >> >> What am I supposed to look at? Should I see a correlation that >> indicates that people in industries that limit titles produce better >> work than people in industries that are more open? > >Well, if engineers designed buildings with the failure rate of >major IT systems the papers would be full of them. Even the >recent crisis over highway bridges is more about state run >maintenance than design. The fact that more bridges haven't >fallen down is a tribute to the abilities of the engineers. Design includes maintenance. A program that fails when stressed or a road that has pot holes when stressed are both can both be considered failures. Depending upon what expectations are by the person signing the paycheck. >On the other hand, in the IT industry we continue to see repeated >instances of the same errors we talked about 30 years ago. Remember >the Therac? Still making that mistake. Ever read The Risks Digest? Physicians make the same mistakes. Architects make the same mistakes. And buildings built without architects also have failures. Warriors make the same mistakes. >> Should I be observing that programmers with CDPs are significantly >> different from programmers without CDPs? > >CDP? >Cisco Discovery Protocol? >Continuous Data Protection? >Chemical Dependency Problems? Certificate of Data Processing. It is one of the certifications I have, it is meaningless. My work is what counts, not my certifications. -- "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department." - James Madison
From: Nomen Nescio on 1 Jun 2010 18:30 > Well, if engineers designed buildings with the failure rate of > major IT systems the papers would be full of them. Even the > recent crisis over highway bridges is more about state run > maintenance than design. The fact that more bridges haven't > fallen down is a tribute to the abilities of the engineers. Not really. As someone who writes and reviews code for engineers building bridges, I've seen some horrendous miscalculations in engineering work. However they usually over design and companies are willing to pay for it since they pass the cost on to the government. Software consumers are rarely/never willing to overpay for something overbuilt. Nobody wants the cheapest bridge possible but they do want the cheapest apps, etc. possible. The other thing is when you're building a bridge you know from other similar bridges if something is off. You don't have basis for a comparison with software projects. They're a lot more complicated than any bridge. Not that designing and building a bridge is trivial, but it is formulaic and you do have metrics based on load, span, etc. and you do have several hundred years of engineering history about how bridges were built, which ones failed, etc. all things you don't have with software. > On the other hand, in the IT industry we continue to see repeated > instances of the same errors we talked about 30 years ago. Sad but true. The problem is also related to cost cutting. Good people are expensive and can be difficult to identify, especially when the hiring manager is some jackass MBA that never did the job he's trying to fill. If you try to save money on talent, you won't usually get much.
From: Pete Dashwood on 2 Jun 2010 04:06 Bill Gunshannon wrote: > In article <8693tjFkloU1(a)mid.individual.net>, > "Pete Dashwood" <dashwood(a)removethis.enternet.co.nz> writes: <snipped interesting discussion with some good points on computer "professionalism" and the "art" of IT> > I would love to visit NZ. I have a feeling that things are very > different > in that neck of the woods than just having differnt wildlife. While I am firmly committed to the concept of the Human family and the idea that we are all brothers and sisters under the skin, I am not blind to the fact that each of us is a product of our genetics and the environment we have been raised in. I'm glad I grew up in NZ. Not because it is a superior or better place, but because it afforded me the opportunites to extend myself. (Many places do this and wise parents will try and get their kids to do this in ANY place, but it is certainly easier in some places than in others.) This is a good place to grow up in. You don't have to be rich to enjoy skiing, sailing, surfing, fishing, golf, contact sports, and the climate is generally kind enough to allow every kind of outdoor activity for most of the year. The days when we lived off wool and butter are generally over and we are becoming a "knowledge based" economy with most Kiwis getting a University Education (then heading straight off overseas so they can cash in on it :-)) It is a unique place and. although there are many beautiful places in the world (and I have visited many of them) I really love being here and it is special to me. After an absence of over 30 years, I am very happy to set adventuring aside and let my life move into a peaceful and tranquil twilight where I can enjoy my books, writing, music, and write software in my armchair without having to put on a suit and tie and battle traffic in the daily commute. :-) I can be at a rolling Pacific surf beach in 10 minutes, I can pick oranges out of my kitchen window, and I live in a town which is small enough not to have lost its sense of community, but important enough to have decent restaurants, live theatre, an excellent Art Gallery, and, in Summer, a very Mediterranean lifestyle with sidewalk cafes and outdoor bars. Tourism is becoming a major industry here and I can understand why. Wikipedia really covers it much better than I can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand Hope you make it some time, Bill. Pete. -- "I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."
From: Howard Brazee on 2 Jun 2010 11:58
On Wed, 2 Jun 2010 00:30:26 +0200 (CEST), Nomen Nescio <nobody(a)dizum.com> wrote: >> On the other hand, in the IT industry we continue to see repeated >> instances of the same errors we talked about 30 years ago. > >Sad but true. The problem is also related to cost cutting. Good people are >expensive and can be difficult to identify, especially when the hiring >manager is some jackass MBA that never did the job he's trying to fill. If >you try to save money on talent, you won't usually get much. And we have the same kinds of mistakes in lawn mowing as well. Over-engineering is important in bridge building or in designing & testing worse case disaster plans in case an oil-rig fails. But it's rarely worth the money in lawn mowing or web design. -- "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department." - James Madison |