Josh Smift wrote: > YD == Yves Dorfsman <[email protected]> > > YD> I do believe there has to be a form of licensing that should be able > YD> to increase, guarantee a minimum quality of work. Would you advocate > YD> not to license airline pilots ? > > I think it depends a lot on what you want you want to use the license for. > All too often, licensing is used as a way to do something like "keep > unqualified people from doing harm", which is dangerously close to "keep > people who aren't already in the field from entering it", especially if > the licensing requirements are onerous (high fees, many hours of > study/practice, etc). > > I don't think a license guarantees quality of work. To pick a simple > example, many people with driver's licenses are in fact poor and even > dangerous drivers. > There's licensing, and then there's "guilds".
Licensing to ensure a minimum level of skill (like drivers' licences - look how well *that* works! :-) is a public safety issue. Guilds-disguised as licencing is another. For example, in most places you can become a licensed electrician without going through a multi-year apprenticeship program - even if you can pass all of the tests. This is a barrier to entry that keeps people who may be perfectly well qualified from practicing. The argument is that apprenticing under a master electrician is the only way to find out if someone is qualified - but a combination of a written and practical exam could easily determine the same thing. Lawyers take a bar exam, and if they pass, they get to practice. This means that qualified individuals (or at least those who can answer the questions on the test) can enter the field at any time. Now - does either of these models make sense for sysadmins yet? I really don't believe so. Our industry is not codified in either an equivalent to the Electrical Code nor a set of laws. And sysadmins are only one branch of a completely unregulated industry - I'm much more concerned that systems architects, programmers, and coders are completely without hope of licensing than I am for sysadmins. When computers become commodities-built-to-a-standard like electrical outlets, and plumbing fixtures then it may become practical to consider licensing those who install them. Right now the only standards are the underlying electrical and mechanical standards for the physical plant that surrounds the computers - and there are licenced tradespeople who are responsible for the physical plant - not the sysadmins. (Or at least I *hope* that sysadmins aren't doing electrical wiring and plumbing without licences in those areas!) Since there are no standards to measure by, licencing at this time could only be a barrier to entry - it cannot provide an assurance of ability, since there is no standard to use as a measure. Even the Electrical Code changes at a glacial pace. Computer technology is still progressing at speeds and in directions that make the definition of a standard impossible to track - and even more impossible to ensure that the practitioners have any relevant skills for. An electrician who trained 20 years ago is a little dated, but most of the underlying rules are still in force, and the ones that have changed aren't that hard to catch up to. A sysadmin who trained 20 years ago needs to relearn most of the world to be functional today. The sysadmin profession is not ready for a licensing barrier. What standard are sysadmins to be measured to? - Richard _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
