On Fri, 26 Jun 2015, Will Dennis wrote:
Having played a tiny part in the discussion on professionalization (discussing on LOPSA Discuss mailing list, then chairing a BoF on it at LISA ’14, then acting as a member of the resulting LOPSA Professional Content Committee, which sadly went nowhere, to which I accept partial blame due to a workload increase at the time...) I think Aleksey’s post is spot-on. LOPSA could gain real direction by taking a leadership role in advancing this effort. But I don’t really care who does it, just think that it should be done. As a profession (trade, whatever) our role in society is becoming more and more important as things all around us become more computerized. I’d like to see us become more professional via structured training and peer evaluation, and someday be like the electrical or plumbing etc. trades (maybe minus the union aspect...) on up to P.E. level with the requisite training and testing.
let me make an analogy here that I hope will show why I see this as such a problem.
Imagine trying to professionalize teh electrical trade in a world where there are no plugs, hooking anything up requires hard wiring. Yes, not everyone is able to solder, but there are a LOT of people out there who can, or can twist/tape wires together to make things work.
It's all well and good to point at the fact that things are unreliable and there are fires that start because of this, but as long as there are no standardized plugs (a few manufacturers make plugs, but they are all incompatible with each other[1]) people don't have a choice other than to keep doing the work themselves.
It's good to provide into and teach, but the indea that the profession is going to have standards and prevent people from working who don't meet those standards is beyond mere wishful thinking, it will require a degree of standardization that is unimaginable.
A better field to think about is Auto Mechanic. Anyone can be a mechanic, and can work on their cars, or fix others with a simple business license. There is no training/certification requierd to get a job at a shop. It changes fairly rapidly.
someone can be an expert in one brand or technology, and utterly worthless in others.
There are different certifications available, some mean more than others. there are a lot of vendor certifications.
There are even safety related certifications administered by the government. For example Brake Mechanic, but this doesn't mean that others don't work on brakes just that if the work is being done in a shop it must be doen by or under the direction of someone certified.
another example of government certification in California is the Smog Check program. a company can't provide checks and fix vehicles, one or the other (after an earlier period when there were problems with fradulant certifications and gouging for repairs.
There is the federal Department of Transportation that certifies a lot of equipment and in theory, just about everything on a vehilce running on the public streets is supposed to be DOT approved. In practice there is a lot of aftermarket equipment that's not, but is running on the highway (there almost no beadlock wheels that are SOT approved, but a large percentage of offroad trucks and wannabes are unning them on the highway for example)
David Lang[1] The reality is even worse, not only are the plugs different, voltage, current, frequency, etc all vary from part to part.
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