Full disclosure: As someone who came to system administration via a
liberal arts education and professional background, I'm vaguely
distrustful of Professional (with a capital "P") licensing
requirements, mostly because they might imply that I'd have never
landed a job in the first place. That said...
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I can see job-specific
requirements in some cases (HIPAA, PCI). I can also see the benefit of
Professional organization like LOPSA that seek the discovery of,
publication of, and training in best practices.
One item that hasn't been mentioned is how Professional requirements
affect cost of service.
There is no free lunch in the areas of education, credentials, and
licensing. System administrators or their employers have to pay for
them -- which will
a. Raise the cost of training system administrators,
b. Raise the cost of hiring and retaining them,
c. Add administrative costs for enforcing Professionalism,
d. Ergo, raise the cost of computing services.
Somewhat cynically, I'd suggest it would probably also train out of
potential job candidates a certain degree of creativity as they're
told the "right" way to do things -- and as they go to work in an
environment where "right" is enforced by whatever agency gets to
oversee the definition of "Professional."
I've tried to be clear about my background, so I'm not trying to fool
anyone that I'm unbiased -- but I have no doubts that we as a
profession will become even more expensive as we become a Profession.
The costs may (or may not) be willingly borne by the economy, but
there's no reasonable argument that the costs won't be there.
--
Paul Heinlein
[email protected]
45°38' N, 122°6' W
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