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From: Robert Martin on 21 Jan 2007 08:59
On 2007-01-20 11:03:08 -0600, "Daniel T." <daniel_t(a)earthlink.net> said:

>> Do we need some kind of professional organization, or guild to
>> differentiate the professionals from the non-professionals? Lawyers
>> found they needed one. Doctors too. I've not been a fan of this
>> idea in the past, but perhaps the time has come.
>
> How do we decide who should get in? We seem to agree that amount of
> education doesn't decide it.

Probably the same way that lawyers and doctors initially get in to
their professional organizations. They mandate schooling and grades,
internship, and a tough examination.

In our case I think the schooling could come from a four-year
institution or a good trade school. The goal of the schooling is to
make sure that the basic information has been loaded into their brains,
and that they have shown some proficiency with it.

Internship should be varied and monitored. I imagine two or three
different internships with different companies, supervised by mentors
who are employees of those companies, and who will grade and report on
the intern.

The examination should probably involve a written test of significant
depth. Something akin to the "Bar" exam, or the board exam for
doctors. It should also include review of code created during the
internships.

Maintaining membership in the guild should involve annual or biannual renewals.

Malpractice or unprofessional behavior would be reported to the guild
and could result in loss of guild membership.

--
Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob)��| email: unclebob(a)objectmentor.com
Object Mentor Inc.� � � � � ��| blog:��www.butunclebob.com
The Agile Transition Experts��| web:���www.objectmentor.com
800-338-6716� � � � � � � � ��|



From: topmind on 25 Jan 2007 00:14

Robert Martin wrote:
> On 2007-01-20 11:03:08 -0600, "Daniel T." <daniel_t(a)earthlink.net> said:
>
> >> Do we need some kind of professional organization, or guild to
> >> differentiate the professionals from the non-professionals? Lawyers
> >> found they needed one. Doctors too. I've not been a fan of this
> >> idea in the past, but perhaps the time has come.
> >
> > How do we decide who should get in? We seem to agree that amount of
> > education doesn't decide it.
>
> Probably the same way that lawyers and doctors initially get in to
> their professional organizations. They mandate schooling and grades,
> internship, and a tough examination.
>
> In our case I think the schooling could come from a four-year
> institution or a good trade school. The goal of the schooling is to
> make sure that the basic information has been loaded into their brains,
> and that they have shown some proficiency with it.
>
> Internship should be varied and monitored. I imagine two or three
> different internships with different companies, supervised by mentors
> who are employees of those companies, and who will grade and report on
> the intern.
>
> The examination should probably involve a written test of significant
> depth. Something akin to the "Bar" exam, or the board exam for
> doctors. It should also include review of code created during the
> internships.

But software is not as clear-cut as say law or medical. The human body
is mostly "fixed". There will not be 10 new body plans to choose from
every few years (unless maybe arthropods and echinoderms grow
intelligent). Software suffers from the "god problem":

http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/science.htm

>
> Maintaining membership in the guild should involve annual or biannual renewals.
>
> Malpractice or unprofessional behavior would be reported to the guild
> and could result in loss of guild membership.
>
> --
> Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) | email: unclebob(a)objectmentor.com
> Object Mentor Inc. | blog: www.butunclebob.com
> The Agile Transition Experts | web: www.objectmentor.com
> 800-338-6716 |

-T-

From: Don Roby on 25 Jan 2007 22:02
topmind wrote:
>
> But software is not as clear-cut as say law or medical. The human body
> is mostly "fixed". There will not be 10 new body plans to choose from
> every few years (unless maybe arthropods and echinoderms grow
> intelligent). Software suffers from the "god problem":
>

If you find legal and medical work to be so simple and clear-cut,
perhaps you should change profession and make a bundle.


From: topmind on 26 Jan 2007 02:09


On Jan 25, 7:02 pm, Don Roby <d...(a)acm.org> wrote:
> topmind wrote:
>
> > But software is not as clear-cut as say law or medical. The human body
> > is mostly "fixed". There will not be 10 new body plans to choose from
> > every few years (unless maybe arthropods and echinoderms grow
> > intelligent). Software suffers from the "god problem".
>
> If you find legal and medical work to be so simple and clear-cut,
> perhaps you should change profession and make a bundle.

Well, let's try it then. What would *you* put on the software
engineering exam?

-T-

From: Robert Martin on 26 Jan 2007 22:13
On 2007-01-26 01:09:23 -0600, "topmind" <topmind(a)technologist.com> said:

>
>
> On Jan 25, 7:02 pm, Don Roby <d...(a)acm.org> wrote:
>> topmind wrote:
>>
>>> But software is not as clear-cut as say law or medical. The human body
>>> is mostly "fixed". There will not be 10 new body plans to choose from
>>> every few years (unless maybe arthropods and echinoderms grow
>>> intelligent). Software suffers from the "god problem".
>>
>> If you find legal and medical work to be so simple and clear-cut,
>> perhaps you should change profession and make a bundle.
>
> Well, let's try it then. What would *you* put on the software
> engineering exam?

Exams are about knowledge. An exam for entry into a software guild
would test knowledge that any good software engineer should have.
Knowledge of languages, data structures, algorithms, databases,
paradigms, methods, practices, etc. The exam should also involve some
significant problems to solve by writing software that solves them.

Architects used to do this by asking candidates to create blueprints of
buildings from a spec. Then a group of Juror architects would evaluate
the blueprints and grade them.

> --
Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob)��| email: unclebob(a)objectmentor.com
Object Mentor Inc.� � � � � ��| blog:��www.butunclebob.com
The Agile Transition Experts��| web:���www.objectmentor.com
800-338-6716� � � � � � � � ��|



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