[povertyworld]

Programming is the last decent job that doesn't have a bunch of artificial barriers to entry put up to protect privileged people from competition from the industrious poor. The day I need a license from the government to own a compiler is the day I check out of this life.

[pragmacoders]

Does it bother you that every day, your personal information is transferred between a massive number of services created, maintained and secured by individuals with no security or ethical training whatsoever?

That personal information is then sold to even more organizations that need no scientific or statistical basis, again with no ethical oversight, to make decisions that impact your future and the future of those around you.

Picking up a compiler will never be banned anymore than it is banned to pick up a scalpel. But to call yourself a doctor you'd accept the responsibility (ethical and professional) that it entails. To call yourself a professional engineer you accept the responsibility that it entails. You hold yourself to a certain level of quality and ethics or you give up your right to hold the title.

Without a standard level of responsibility there is no way to build any more of a foundation than we have. We will always have the rickety mess of data leaks, corruption, and general lack of accountability that we have now.

We will have employers that can pressure programmers to go directly against their morals and ethics to get what they want.

I'm not proposing that the poor be excluded from the field. I'm proposing that you not only give them a job but give them a pathway to a quality, independent education that will continue to prepare them for the major challenges they will be expected to face and the ethical questions that they'll have to make a stand on.

[cabalamat]

> Does it bother you that every day, your personal information is transferred between a massive number of services created, maintained and secured by individuals with no security or ethical training whatsoever?

No, it doesn't bother me at all.

What does bother me is large companies such as Google have a business model that is based on them gathering as much information as possible about everyone, and then using that information to manipulate them, typically into buying things.

Credentialism will not solve that problem.

> We will have employers that can pressure programmers to go directly against their morals and ethics to get what they want.

Credentialism in programming will not solve that problem either. What will solve it is:

- a reduction in income and wealth inequality, and a basic income, so that employees have more bargaining power with respect to employers

- laws against big companies behaving badly

[no-s]

>- laws against big companies behaving badly well, actually big companies do in fact use their influence to suborn those laws to get away with bad behavior and create barriers to competition. It would probably be simpler to put an upper limit on the size of any organization (government too) and use vigilante justice to enforce the limit, HHOS.

[SuoDuanDao]

Fair enough, but as a member of a protected profession myself (engineering) it's not the regulations per se that prevent people from gaming the system - it's a culture of professional pride. Where I practice we have this weird "swearing in" type ritual developed by Kipling back when the profession was born. I think it actually does more to ensure high standards than any legal threat the society can bring to bear on bad actors.

[flexie]

Hope that by ‘this life’ you mean the life of a software developer.

[povertyworld]

That sounded bad. If programming becomes illegal, I'll focus on graphic design. Short of a bolshevik style coup, they won't be able to ban that in the United States.

[alexgmcm]

Indeed - look at the case in Law where in the UK at least the pupillage requirement (essentially an internship/apprenticeship post university IIRC) ensures it remains the preserve of the privileged - especially the upper echelons of the field such as barristers and judges.

We see the same with the iron grip that the medical council has on the number of medicine students (imagine if we fixed the numbers of software engineering students and made it difficult to register foreign qualifications).

I agree that educational standards are important - but if that isn't coupled with improving access to higher education (including post-graduate education) then it's basically just saying only the rich should be allowed in.

[pragmacoders]

I definitely agree that higher education should be accessible to everyone and for free.

I feel like the conversation should be

- "We need ethical and professional standards because our current way of doing things isn't working out too well!"

- "But that will exclude people who don't have access to education!"

- "Then we should give everyone a means to get the education. Because it is an unlimited resource that can be freely given without being taken from someone else and enriches all of humanity!"

- "Yeah! Let's do both those things!"

At least that's how I had hoped the conversation would lead.

But we can't throw our hands in the air and say "Accessible education is impossible and so we can never have standards of ethics or quality". That is definitely a dead end for society.

Anywho - I absolutely agree!