Computer Professional

Full Title

The people in the computer field want to be considered professionals, but they haven't taken the steps necessary to earn that.

Context

• Ever since the Code of Hammurabi professionals have been held accountable for their actions. When ever a licensed medical care provider or professional engineer signs in an official capacity, they add their professional designation, (e.g. MD or PE) to their signature to indicate their professional capacity and to accept accountability for their actions.

• While computer programmers like to consider their professional status, they neither sign their work product nor take any accountability for the correct operation of their work product.

• The common behavior of programmers is to create terms of use as a Contract of Adhesion specifically to exclude any liability including "fitness for use".

Wasa is a Swedish warship. It sank after sailing roughly 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. The ship was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus as part of the military expansion he initiated in a war with Poland-Lithuania.

• Rogaway's Radical CS talk

Stories

Wasa

Richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself, upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, Wasa was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper structure of the hull. Despite this lack of stability, she was ordered to sea and sank only a few minutes after encountering a wind stronger than a breeze.

The order to sail was the result of a combination of factors. The king, who was leading the army in Poland at the time of her maiden voyage, was impatient to see her take up her station as flagship of the squadron. At the same time, the king's subordinates lacked the political courage to openly discuss the ship's problems or to have the maiden voyage postponed. An inquiry was organized by the Swedish Privy Council to find those responsible for the disaster, but in the end, no one was punished.

There are several possible learnings from this story, such as the following:

1. the client is not always king. Even if he actually is. We don’t have to blindly fulfill his every demand, just because he has money or power.
2. when you hire experts let them do their job. Don’t help them with advice. And don’t pressure them with impossible demands or deadlines.
3. there has to be at least one person in the team who isn’t afraid to tell us what we’re doing wrong. Or even if we’re not wrong, they just think we are. It’s still useful, right?

Problems

• As the past Editor in Chief has claimed "Computing, You Have Blood on Your Hands." But there are no Computer Professionals to be found to take any responsibility.

  Facebook has "substantially contribute" to human rights violations perpetrated against Myanmar Rohingya people. ... It is time for all Computer Professionals to accept responsibility for computing's current state. ... Admitting we have a problem is a necessary first step toward addressing the problems computing has created.