| The field of information technology is still in its infancy. Had it been more mature, we would already have formalised the distinction between the researcher, the engineer and the craftsman, so commonly seen in other fields. Our current use of titles is loose and very imprecise, and serve as marketing more than anything else. I would like to see a formal distinction between the different roles. Douglas Engelbart, Dennis Ritchie, Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds are not "developers" or "programmers". Engelbart was a "computer scientist" in the true sense of the word. His systems saw little practical application, but they enhanced our understanding of what computing machines could do. Ritchie, Stallman and Torvalds are engineers. If they were in the car industry, they would be renowned engine and drive train engineers. Your typical programming job, on the other hand, is equivalent to the title of "mechanic", "construction worker" or "craftsman". Many people who enter the field don't actually want to be craftsmen, but since we are so poor at making the distinction, we get misunderstandings. There are retired programmers who worked in the business for 30 years who never quite understood why the job turned out to be so different from what they had imagined. One consequence of making this distinction is that a hierarchy of exclusivity inevitably emerges from this. There are far more car mechanics than drivetrain engineers. Only so many people have the privilege of doing that. I don't know if the supply of computer engineers and computer scientists is smaller or greater than the demand, but what I do know is that these jobs aren't the kind you find on a job site. They are found through networking, which requires you to have the right kind of network, which isn't possible for everyone who would be a good fit for the position. |