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by mcmancini 4106 days ago
Stick your head in the sand if you want, but for a couple years now there has been PE licensure for software engineering: http://ncees.org/about-ncees/news/ncees-introduces-pe-exam-f...

Beyond the NCEES, the IEEE Computer Society and ACM jointly publish a code of ethics for software engineering: http://www.computer.org/web/education/code-of-ethics

Even if you're not a member, their code of ethics is similar to every other professional code of ethics I've seen. I don't see what's blurry about it.

1 comments

None of those have force of law or government-regulated licensing. Anyone can throw up a website with heir own definition if professional ethics. An obsolete trade association's website isn't privileged.
I guess I don't understand what you mean by a PE not being government-regulated licensing? If you mean that a software engineering PE isn't mandated for work, then I agree that's true but I think that's short-sighted in view of the trends for safety-critical projects. Regardless of government mandates, I see it as problematic from a liability standpoint to sign off on safety-critical projects now that the cat is out of the bag.

Bringing it back to the top of the thread, I think that willful ignorance is a bad recommendation, would not help in a legal situation, would be negligent, and would be contrary to a professional code of ethics. Maybe you feel that a consultant or someone working on areas outside of the safety-critical domain doesn't need to follow a professional code or act in a professional manner? Completely disagree if that is the case.

As far as IEEE-CS and ACM being "obsolete trade associations", agree to disagree. I'm not aware of a better trade organization than those two.

Honestly, I don't understand the backlash against professionalism.