🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jul22.140553.24030@news.nd.edu> wessels@thor.cc.nd.edu (Andy Wessels) writes:
>Engineering is moving towards requiring practicing engineers to be registered 
>witht the state(s) that they practice in (though not required today)  It would
>be analagous (sp?) to the bar exam for lawyers or the boards for
>doctors.

Feh. A disgusting practice.

>This is a way for the state to help assure that the people practicing
>are competent and not outside of there realm of competency.  This
>type of exam is a _professional_ certification.

Actually, it seems to exist (in most fields) mostly as a way to permit
legal restraint of trade in order to keep the incomes of the
practitioners high.

Lets face it: is there a critical problem with TV sets exploding? Are
most cars badly designed? Is someone killed every day by badly written
operating systems? No?

Then why get the government, with its six foot long nose, involved?

>There is software that is very
>difficult and has the potential effect of taking several lives.

But the people hired to write such software are generally quite good
people. You see, the companies involved know that they will get their
pants sued off if there is a problem. Cases such as the famous one of
the radiation therapy machine that killed a couple of people are VERY
rare.

Besides, this law will license not just people writing code for
medical systems, or cars, but people writing buisness applications,
and videogames. Goddamn stupid if you asked me.

>Before I get flamed to death (asbestos suit being donned at this minute :-),
>please consider that there may be lives involved  in software.  The actions
>could be devistating.

Could be. Might be. Possibly.

When you start showing me the corpses piled in the streets, instead of
the possible theoretical corpses, I will believe that there is a
problem. Right now, I'm going to go back to work on my
not-built-by-people-with-state-sanction computer, and later I will
drive home in my not-built-by-people-with-state-sanction car. I will
not worry, because liability lawsuits are a much better defense of my
safety than a thousand boards certifying programmers.

>Consider that Disk-Jockeys working at
>stations over 100 watts _must_ be liscenced by the FCC.  As the transmitter
>power goes up, so do the requiremnents.  And the DJ may  not have anything
>to do with the station outside of his little room.

Kind of silly, isn't it? Why are you bringing it up as a good thing,
when the licensing of DJ's is so obviously useless...

>andy
>wessels@thor.cc.nd.edu

Perry Metzger

-- 
"Live Free or Die!"
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