[Discuss] Programming vs Engineering

[markw at mohawksoft.com]

> On 01/23/2012 12:13 PM, Richard Pieri wrote:
>> On 1/23/12 9:27 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
>>> but few are licensed. How many EEs does NSTAR or National Grid have on
>>> their payroll, and of those what percentage are licensed.
>>
>> More than none, I should expect.  Even in a worst case where NSTAR has
>> no licensed EEs on staff they have people educated in engineering
>> disciplines overseeing the work.  This is far and away better than
>> most software companies where the "engineers" have no engineering
>> background at all and their supervisors have even weaker technical
>> backgrounds. And of course nobody is held accountable when things go
>> wrong.
>>
> I would agree. The issue today is moving from no effective certification
> to something. It requires that employers buy into it by (1) encouraging
> existing employees to certify, and (2) adding requirements to job specs.
>

Then there is a lack of consensus about what such a certification would
look like. Would it be based on Unix, Windows? C,C++, Java, Perl, Python?
Would it be very abstract, favoring no existing technology?

If it were too abstract, how could it be anything but valueless? If it
were specific in any way, how could it be universally valuable in the
field? What kind of certification would be applicable for LAMP guys on
unix and guys that uses Visual C++ and Windows? In such a way that both
could pass with the skills relevant in their jobs?