🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <28888793.29597@ics.uci.edu> jhummel@wave.ics.uci.edu (Joseph Edward Hummel) writes:
>> Lots of discussion already...
>
>Ok, I'll bite as well.  I think in general it is an idea long overdue,
>though I agree NJ's approach is much too vague to be useful/practical.
>But someone has to get the ball rolling, and the discussion moving forward.
>
>We all know computers are being embedded in more and more products, and
>how do we know these computers are being programmed in a competent manner?
>How about the recent X-ray machine, programmed by an individual with a
>2-year degree, that killed 3 or so people?

How about the licensed physicians that butcher patients every day?

I am shocked, completely and totally, that any programmer would even
CONSIDER the idea that licensing is a good thing.

1. What problem is this going to solve? Are people dying in the
   streets from bad software? No. Any reader of RISKS probably knows
   that there are deaths associated with badly designed technology,
   but they aren't a daily occurance. They are rare, and usually
   the software in question was written by people who would have
   gotten a license successfully anyway.

   We have to remember that law is the LAST RESORT for handling a
   problem. If there isn't even a visible problem, why are we
   resorting to legal means?

   Yes, if I screw up while writing a radiation therapy program, I
   might kill people. They can also then sue me for every penny I've
   got. I know people who write software for medical robotics. They
   are DAMN careful. No one has to tell them that a screw up could
   kill someone. They are professionals. No one in their right mind
   would hire someone to write software like this if they weren't. And
   if they screw up, they know what the liability is like.

   Yeah, screwups happen, but they also happen when people with
   licenses are on the job. Doctors screw up. Lawyers screw up.
   Electricians screw up. There is very little evidence that licenses
   will solve anything.

2. Licenses are a violation of my fundimental rights. If I want to
   write a program for someone, and they voluntarily decide that they
   want me to write the program for them, what right does anyone have
   to interfere? Government doesn't have the right to get its nose
   stuck in every last niche of my life.

   Paraphrasing the ol' gun rights bumper sticker, they'll get my
   keyboard when they pry it from my cold dead hands. The day they
   create programmers licenses is the day I turn criminal. I'm not
   getting any damn license no matter what the good for nothing
   parasites in the state house want.

3. Licenses are impossible to create and enforce. There are many
   different kinds of programming and programmers. There are too many
   different levels of skill and work involved to create a decent
   test. At best, they will test for the lowest common denominator,
   which means that, again, one has gained absolutely nothing.

Perry Metzger
-- 
"Live Free or Die!"
For information on the Libertarian Party, call 1-800-682-1776