🚀 go-pugleaf

Most people in favor of programmer licensing use the argument that
engineers and many other professionals are licensed. What's so different
about programmers?

I'll tell you what's different. There's no course of study in
programming. You can't get a degree in programming, because few people
know how to teach it and fewer know how to test it. Programming is an
art, not a science, but unlike most artistic endeavors it's been around
for much less than a century.

Oh, I'm sure somebody can come up with a programming test and have
states require people to take it to call themselves Professional
Programmers, just as most states require people to take a test before
they call themselves Professional Engineers. But just because a test
exists doesn't mean it will do more good than harm. Did you know that
ETS---you know, the company that sells the SAT and the GRE---has a test
for golf professionals? That's right: a multiple-choice test on such
important facts as the names of pieces of the golf club. ETS also has a
test for hairstylists. I can understand that maybe some ETS president
had a bad haircut in his childhood, but isn't licensing barbers going a
bit too far?

I recently asked in comp.software-eng how you would test competence in
software engineering. Would you test knowledge of all the latest
terminology for decades-old concepts? A bunch of people agreed that a
meaningful test would be very difficult. The only positive response I
received was a proposal that programmers be tested on actual programming
problems. That's a test? You might as well say that the barber test
should consist of a bunch of real heads of hair to cut. Guess what,
folks? That's exactly the test that goes on every day at any artist's
job. If the artist does well at a job, he gets good recommendations and
can get a better job. A test before the fact is pointless.

Unfortunately, our society has an almost obscene fascination with tests.
Mark my words: Within ten years ETS will be selling an ``objective''
(i.e., multiple-choice) test for programmers (or software engineers or
whatever other term is popular). More and more states will use that
test, and good programmers will lose their jobs because they aren't
familiar with the irrelevant material tested.

When most universities have a Department of Programming or at least a
recognized programming specialization inside the engineering department,
we might have some basis for licensing programmers. Until then, it is
simply irresponsible to even think that we can say what a programmer
should know. We can't.

---Dan