[inimino]

I am coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that organizational habits (hiring and promotion practices, VC preferences for engineering team structures, etc, etc) are more significant than what universities teach (or perhaps, ultimately, the former determine the latter) and we need a movement towards professionalization, and probably some kind of guild-like structure to gatekeep (that is, establish a competency floor) if there is to be any improvement over the status quo. Andrei Sorin's recent massive tome, though a bit of a rant, influenced my thinking quite a bit here.

[rbongers]

That's an interesting idea, I'll give it a read. The big problem I see right off the bat is lack of available talent and hiring pressure, but I reserve my judgement.

[inimino]

I'm editorializing a bit, his formulation of the idea is a little different from mine, but enough time in the industry makes it hard not to conclude that something is eroding the professionalism of the field, and I think his ideas about what it is are probably, if wrong, at least wrong in a very interesting direction.