
The Australian Computer Society should be disbanded - jennichen
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130131000939-921366-the-australian-computer-society-should-be-disbanded
======
throwaway2048
Accreditation is common in many industries in Australia, it's basically a huge
racket. To legally do any wiring work at all it must be done by an accredited
electrician, not merely inspected by one as in most countries. in fact most
home improvements of any kind must be performed by an accredited tradesman.
add to this the laws that state any home improvement must bring the entire
house up to current building codes, it's a recipe for massive expenses that go
straight into the pockets accredited tradesman.

This essentially prevents any person that owns older property from doing any
upgrades, or major repairs at all, because the massive cost of upgrading the
entire house at once is completely out of reach for most people. this leads to
urban decay and property abandonment on a massive scale.

with the recent push by parties such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google to have
registered developer programs complete with code signing, be very wary of
industry wide pushes to introduce a similar thing for programmers. The IEEE
has attempted to introduce the idea for years. you can be sure that soon after
introduction laws forcing accreditation for many types of positions would
shortly follow, as would subsequent rises in membership fees and requirements.

Not to mention the threat of only a certified developer being able to legally
write code at all. this situation already exists in many engineering
disciplines. with things like secure boot and locked bootloaders and signed
code, it is almost a technical triviality.

want to know how general purpose computing will be killed? it will be via
initiatives such as this.

~~~
tomcorrigan
> _laws that state any home improvement must bring the entire house up to
> current building codes_

This is patently false

> _this leads to urban decay and property abandonment on a massive scale_

Australia does not have property abandonment nor urban decay on a massive
scale. Go to Detroit to witness such things.

~~~
retrogradeorbit
10.2% (2011 census data) of Australian properties are sitting there vacant.

[ [http://blog.id.com.au/2012/australian-census-2011/the-
where-...](http://blog.id.com.au/2012/australian-census-2011/the-where-and-
how-of-vacant-dwellings/) ]

And there is certainly urban decay all over the city I live in (Perth).

Also, building codes are local government, aren't they? So it depends on what
council you are in. And I've certainly heard some bad stories.

~~~
jpatokal
As your link itself explains, the vast majority of those vacant properties are
either a) holiday homes that are empty outside vacation season, or b) "areas
with declining population where dwellings are simply abandoned by owners who
can’t sell their property". Vacancy rates in major cities are remarkably low.

~~~
throwaway2048
it may not be a big problem at present, as there is a huge real estate boom in
Australia. But when there is an economic downturn these regulations are going
to hit older areas extremely hard, just like they have in many other nations.

~~~
JacobAldridge
Property values in Australia declined by 4.5% last year. Forecasts are for
around 5% growth this year in my city (Brisbane), but continued declining
prices in Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart and Adelaide.

Huge real estate boom fizzled at the end of '09 / early 2010.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
So, what they need is, oh I don't know, maybe lots of immigrants looking for a
house?

------
beilabs
Here's my experience with the Australian Computer Society.

Having studied abroad (Ireland), I was required to send in all of my exam
results for my B.Sc, H.Dip & M.Sc. as well as a reference from each employer
that I worked with in my field (Software Engineering).

For the visa I was applying for at the time it required that I was certified
by the ACS, have a minimum of 5 years experience.

The process took 6 months for a single sheet of paper saying I was qualified
for my profession! Due to this, my visa was submitted quite a while later than
I initially planned and that took a further 12 months. 18 months all up
waiting for my residency.

They took $600 for what was an open and shut case. They never contacted any of
my references or colleges enquiring about my past experience or grades. The
whole thing is a complete sham and is just another way of grabbing money off
those who need visas.

The entire visa system in Australia is in bad need of restructuring and left a
very sour taste in my mouth.

~~~
ghshephard
Compare that to a Canadian coming into the United States as a "Computer
Systems Analyst" - Show up at the airport 20 minutes earlier than you normally
would, give them a one-page letter describing your employer, what you'll be
doing, where you'll be working. Include a either a 2 year diploma + 2 (3?)
years of work experience or a 4 year degree.

10 minutes later you have a Visa good for three years. Normally one expects
lots of bureaucracy when dealing with the government, but the US/Canada have
really streamlined their NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) down to
next-to-no hoops to jump through.

~~~
moondowner
Off topic, but 'nafta' means petroleum in a good deal of languages, e.g.
<http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D1%84%D1%82%D1%8C>

~~~
phreeza
In English, too. Except for the spelling:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtha>

------
lancewiggs
Firstly - come to New Zealand. There is long list of ICT/Electronics and
Communications roles, including all professional engineers, on the long Term
Skills Shortage list. Additionally ICT and creative indistries are deemed long
term growth areas. This means it's much easier to get into NZ - either for
working or for immigration through our points system.[1] On the ground the
answer is yes, we really need more devs and creatives. Requirements are
generally degrees and a little experience.

Secondly, it's telling that we have yet to see a response from ACS on this
page. Speaks volumes.

[1] <http://www.immigration.govt.nz/pointsindicator/> follow for Absolute
Skills Shortage and Future Growth Areas.

~~~
mrmincent
as an aussie CS grad looking for work, what is a good NZ job search site to
check out? I'd love to work in NZ for a while.

~~~
kuahyeow
<http://www.seek.co.nz> \- All the corporates

<http://jobs.geekzone.co.nz/Jobs> \- You may find some more fun jobs here

Looking at user groups in NZ might yield you something too

------
jacques_chester
I basically joined the ACS because it's there and I figured I ought to.

They gave me a post-nominal: CT.

If I want the next grade up -- CP -- I will need to take thousands of dollars
of synergising-outside-the-box courses.

Basically the ACS isn't really for software engineers. It's for middle
management.

I won't be renewing.

(I might renew my ACM/IEEE memberships).

~~~
ra
Totally. I've only once heard the ACS mentioned outside of the immigration
context, and that was a senior manager in a bank asking why we (his best tech
staff) weren't members.

I'm not sure if (Insert nationality here) Computer Societies are as irrelevant
in other countries, but in Australia I'm pretty sure it serves no useful role
other than in immigration.

So, if that's the case, they have no basis for qualification to determine the
merit of an IT skills based residency application.

A self-proclaimed peak body.

~~~
jiggy2011
In Britain we have the British Computer Society. When we were at university
they turned up and gave us a talk on the benefits of membership and sold a
bunch of us "student memberships", to graduate to full membership IIRC you
needed to get a degree and then pass a bunch of extra exams.

Out of all the people I know working professionally in dev/IT I don't think
any of them are now BCS members.

I haven't heard of employers asking for it either.

~~~
vidarh
In 12 years in the UK managing development teams and reviewing hundreds of
CV's, I've never once seen the BCS mentioned on CV's or had any candidates
mention it.

I did consider membership at one point, and attended a few events, and judging
from the people there it seems like they might have a little bit of relevance
in pockets of the consultancy industry etc., but otherwise there doesn't seem
to be much value in joining. There are some good special interest groups, and
affiliated organisations (e.g. ACCU is great if you do much C/C++ stuff), but
most of those are open to people who are not BCS members anyway.

I wouldn't ever ask for BCS membership from candidates because I know my own
experience, and know the hassle I'd still have to go through to get membership
just in order to certify a very basic level of knowledge, so I know I'd
exclude a huge proportion of good candidates without getting an assurance that
they were fit for the job, and would still have to go through most of the same
interview process anyway.

~~~
alexkus
I work with one (out of 200 odd) person who has bothered with becoming MBCS,
so they do exist!

I (Comp Sci B.Sc.) never bothered for many of the above reasons, and I can
find better things to spend £100 a year on, but I have bothered with IMA
(ima.org.uk) membership after finishing my Maths B.A. because the IMA's
magazine is actually quite interesting (and it's only £48 a year).

------
indecision
I was recently involved in an ACS "Re-accreditation" review for my University
which I graduated from in 2011. It was clear from the outset that the whole
thing was a farce - to be re-accredited required the ACS to ask past students
generic questions (such as "How important is ethics to an IT Professional")
and for us to give canned answers. While the university didn't explicitly tell
us to give the 'expected' answers to ACS questions, it was strongly implied
that we were expected to represent the virtues that the ACS "teaches".

It is in the universities interests to advertise that their IT degrees include
ACS accreditation (despite no Australian IT employers I know of giving a damn
about it) and it is in the interest of ACS for the university to keep paying
the exorbitant fees. If anything, I feel that ACS accrediation is detrimental
to the students as it requires the university to include such useful courses
as "Ethics for the IT Professional" in their degrees. While being ethical is
obviously important to any professional, this is time that could be spent
learning real skills instead.

~~~
daemin
I did one of these a few years ago and it seemed like quite a formality, they
asked vague questions about topics related to professionalism rather than any
technical skill.

While I can understand that a professional body would want to ensure that
people acted ethically and in good faith, I would think that it would be wiser
to ensure that people graduating from technical, engineering related, and
detail oriented degrees were just that. That way having an ACS seal of
approval on a degree would carry some sort of weight towards the technical
quality of the person, and hence would actually mean something.

Maybe it's the spaces and people I work with, but no one that I have worked
with is actually a member of the ACS, despite being in industry for almost a
decade.

~~~
jacques_chester
The reason they hammer on the Code of Ethics is because that's what other
professions have.

They need to show that there's some Code that could be made enforceable by
legislation. It's part of the bigger plan to lever the ACS into the same role
that the law societies or the AMA enjoy.

~~~
daemin
As far as software is concerned, until we have proper liability for defective
software, ala Civil/Mechanical Engineering (where one signs their name to the
design to certify safety and fit-for-purpose), we have little right to call
ourselves (Software) Engineers, and hence no real reason for a professional
accreditation/certification body.

I also just looked at the website, and all of the membership levels look like
rankings in a guild system to me. Spend your time, pay more money, rise in
ranks. Protectionism at its finest, and even though I'm heavily a software
developer, I'm still against this burden.

~~~
jacques_chester
Liability doesn't make sense for a lot of software. It's not like electricity
where it's always potentially dangerous, civil where mistakes can cause death
and dismemberment _en masse_ and so on.

Basically software liability is just rolled up into the relevant market.
Writing facebook games? It doesn't really _matter_ to society if you get it a
bit wrong. Writing pacemaker software? Then you're governed by medical device
regulations.

Software's application to problems are so varied, so wide, that it's
insensible to apply a single liability scheme to it.

~~~
daemin
Exactly my point.

The wide range of software that can be written precludes a standard measure of
risk and liability, hence it eliminates the need for an (software) industry
wide accreditation body.

Plus I've always found smaller more local meetups to be a better way of
interacting with a specific development community.

------
Schwolop
For those unaware, this polemic is by Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer. He's
been very outspoken in the Australian media about over-regulation of industry
and outdated think tanks stifling innovation by recommending tactics that
reinforce the status quo.

------
jacques_chester
I think I can explain the Electrical Engineering thing.

A few years ago the ACS geared up to join some sort of peak body for
professions. They took the view that they should represent all software
professionals of any kind.

Then Engineers Australia put in a competing claim for jurisdiction over
software engineers. The _scoundrels_.

I remember this because I was a student member at the time (hey, free BBQs)
and they sent a sob story email to all their members about it.

Basically everybody is pissing on everybody's curtains.

~~~
drakeandrews
Completely irrelevant, but I must say I like the phrase "everybody is pissing
on everyone's curtains".

~~~
arethuza
Even more irrelevantly, I'm rather impressed at how quickly Google has indexed
this. When searching for that, rather splendid, phrase this page ranks top.

------
Wingman4l7
I find it completely ridiculous -- how on Earth could a the ACS hope to apply
any sort of standard evaluation to a CS / IT degree earned in any of a dozen
countries, from any of a thousand universities _(with attendant varying degree
requirements and relative differences in course difficulty)_ , not to mention
evaluating self-taught skills or industry experience in hundreds of
specialties. A programmer is not a tradesman.

No IT employer in Australia that I've communicated with has ever mentioned the
ACS in regards to qualifications, not once -- I would be surprised if any even
know it exists, unless they have worked with sponsoring skilled worker visas.

~~~
stephen_g

        No IT employer in Australia that I've communicated with has ever mentioned the
        ACS in regards to qualifications, not once -- I would be surprised if any even 
        know it exists
    

Same - I've been working as a software engineer in Australia for almost five
years now, had never heard of them!

~~~
lessnonymous
We know they exist. They're just irrelevant.

It says a lot if you prefer to tell us you're an ACS member rather than that
you write code for fun at home.

~~~
aohtsab
This is interesting to hear. I'm in the process of applying for an Australian
visa (no CS degree). To get an independent visa, I need 2 more years of work
experience, before I qualify to _apply_ to have my skills tested by ACS in
very specific (and almost esoteric) programming knowledge.

And this is only the first step to apply for an 'invitation to apply' for a
visa.

What are my job prospects as a US software developer seeking to emigrate to
Australia? How often do Australian companies sponsor visas for overseas
workers?

~~~
jbarham
> What are my job prospects as a US software developer seeking to emigrate to
> Australia?

Frankly, assuming you have the right to live in the US, you are much better
off staying in the US if you want to maximize your opportunities as a software
developer vs. moving to Australia.

I say this as a Canadian who worked as a software developer in Southern
California for 4.5 years but moved to Australia two years ago, largely to
escape the restrictions of US work visas and try my hand at doing my own
startups.

Sydney and Melbourne are the only two cities in Australia with sizable markets
for software developers. Compare that to multiple _regions_ in the US with
large software industries (SV, SoCal, Texas, Research Triangle, NYC).

There are very few pure technology companies in Australia so the vast majority
of software development is in-house development for banks, insurance companies
etc. Australian companies also tend to be relatively conservative in terms of
technology platforms so PHP, .NET and Java are the norm vs. Python or Ruby.

Certainly there are very talented and capable software developers in
Australia, but the software _industry_ is so small and under-valued (compared
to e.g. mining or real-estate development) that there's very little
opportunity to advance professionally.

Check out <http://www.seek.com.au/> to get a feel for what jobs are on offer.

<http://www.realestate.com.au/> is also interesting to get a feel for the eye-
popping prices that Australians pay for housing. (I rent.)

~~~
daemin
Funnily enough realestate.com.au is one of the places running a Ruby on Rails
dev shop, since I've seen them advertising for Ruby on Rails devs on lists
that I'm on.

------
ecdavis
I'm not particularly fond of the ACS. I was provided with membership by my
work and started getting a large volume of email from them. Unsubscribing from
their mailing lists was a complete ordeal[1], and it was impossible to
completely unsubscribe online - I had to call someone at their office to get
taken off a mailing list. In the end I gave up and filtered their emails
instead. Despite the fact that my membership has since lapsed, I am still
receiving their newsletter and invitations to various events that, as a non-
member, I can't attend.

[1] I had to log in to their account management system, which involved finding
a randomly generated username and password that had never been sent to me.

~~~
Cub3
Exactly the same experience but instead of emails (filtered out) I get a ton
of snail mail asking me to re-join / attend events, its probably been 2-3
years since i've been a member and I still get the mail forwarded to me from
my old address

~~~
chris_wot
You can contact the privacy commissioner if the wont remove you from their
mailing lists.

What sort of events do they promote? Curious.

Edit: oh, but only if there was a _piracy_ commissioner...

------
verelo
I'd love to hear Matt's views on TAFE, i think accreditation has a very
important place in our society (mainly because i got very sick of uneducated
morons charging people for fixing computers, writing bad code...etc)

Anyway, the fact that Matt is complaining about fees and then is happy to be
associated with the Singularity University that chargs $25k for a course
(<http://apply2013.singularityu.org/res/p/faq/>) makes me wonder if hes just
mad that they cant compete with courses provided by organizations such as
TAFE.

In general, this all makes me mad. Matt just seems very outspoken and is
giving Australia a bad rep in general.

~~~
beamso
I believe Matt is strongly pro accreditation.

[http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/fierce-debate-
is...](http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/fierce-debate-is-uni-an-
investment-in-the-future-or-a-waste-of-time-20111114-1neei.html)

~~~
Schwolop
More so he's pro-theoretical grounding in a subject, because with the right
background it's easy to get up to speed in the practicalities.

It's a bit unpleasant reading these articles (Barrie's and the original by
Harper) now, as I currently work for Bigcommerce, and turned down an offer
from Freelancer. Ironically, Freelancer offerred me about 40% less salary
because at the time I had a theoretical background and almost zero practical
experience.

~~~
beamso
If you like, turn on 'showdead' in your HN preferences. Matt appears to have
responded to your original post directly from a hellbanned account
(teflonhook).

~~~
throwxxx
Reviewing the account's comment history, funny to see "teflonhook" has been
chattering away for a year without noticing the hellban.

------
buyx
Having witnessed the hoops that 2 colleagues with significant experience,
skills and strong qualifications- both had university degrees, and were white
(meaning that they received a high quality education) -had to jump through to
migrate from South Africa to Australia, I suspected ACS was more of a
protection racket. This seems to validate this opinion.

One gave up, the other went to New Zealand.

~~~
13hours
I'm just staying in South Africa.

------
damian2000
I think the ACS is irrelevant to most developers working in Australia. I've
always had the impression its elitist and/or aimed at IT management.

------
mattbarrie
Matt here. Turns out I've been talking to myself for the last year with a
hellbanned account! lol.

The ACS just issued a media release: [http://www.acs.org.au/news-and-
media/news-and-media-releases...](http://www.acs.org.au/news-and-media/news-
and-media-releases/2013/acs-media-statement)

Delimiter has posted an article as well:
[http://delimiter.com.au/2013/02/01/morons-freelancer-ceo-
wan...](http://delimiter.com.au/2013/02/01/morons-freelancer-ceo-wants-acs-
disbanded/)

I find it humorous that the ACS's response is "the ACS Foundation has nothing
do to with the ACS". It just happens to be an organisation they set up and
uses their name that their members promote.

Some interesting emails came in overnight:

"The ACS is run by a whole bunch of accountants and lawyers who can't believe
their luck that people associate them with the technology industry"

"You’re right that the ACS has to go.

Back in 2001 I contacted the ACS to discuss some policy things and was
horrified to discover the “experts” I was talking to were nothing more than
accountants. Later they elected a lawyer as president, and then a recruiter,
prompting me to publicly condemn the ACS as a fake during the period 2004 –
2006.

The ACS is actually an anti-professional organisation. Their agenda is not to
promote computer science or engineering expertise, but rather to allow
pretenders to hide in the generic vagueness of “ICT Professional.” They
actually work to devalue real expertise, since engineers and computer
scientists pose a threat to accountants, MBAs and lawyers who want to claim
membership of the technology professsions.

I think the solution has to be a formal inquiry into regulation of the IT
professions, with a view to government stepping in and, as you put it,
disbanding the ACS. At the moment, the ACS has insinuated itself too strongly
into formal regulation. Simply starting a rival organisation for software
engineers, say, would not work. Government has to dissolve existing ACS
influence and leave the way open for new specialist organisations."

------
lessnonymous
Former employer bought me an ACS membership one year (mainly so we could get
access to their members in the hope of selling our services).

The entire membership seems to be guys who built a homebrew PC in the 70s and
haven't showered since, or international students who believe so much in their
education they're fooled into believing they need the ACS to rubber stamp
their degree.

They're totally irrelevant in today's "but can you write good code?" hiring
practice.

The ACS preys on uninformed international students. (Who, in interviews, all
seem to want to work for Cisco in five years time! Are they taught this by the
ACS?)

------
Wingman4l7
The general (low) opinion of the ACS on Whirlpool _(AU broadband / IT forums)_
is that they exist solely to make money from rubber-stamping IT accreditations
for skilled worker visas.

------
mrmagooey
I forgot that the ACS even existed, just let it fade into obscurity on its own
terms.

~~~
mylittlepony
teflonhook 2 hours ago | link [dead]

The problem is this is the professional body that determines what we teach in
universities, that promotes the technology industry as a whole and who decides
who we let into the country on a skilled visa.

------
tnuc
If you don't like the Australian Computer Society accreditation, you could
could always become a Microsoft Certified Professional.

Which one is the bigger joke?

~~~
i386
You would probably get something out of being a MCP. There just isn't a good
reason to be a member of ACS - at all.

------
edgar_di
Just payed the required $450 to have my Australian Master degree accredited by
the ACS, that was only after I had spent $60.000+ in tuition fees in two
years. only to see that the temporary residency application fee rose from $315
to $1250, (almost 400% increase in only one year)... :( some much money. I
truly believe they have gone too far and soon they will start missing all the
money from the international student and skilled migrants. (sorry for any
grammar mistakes)

------
dtalic
This reflects pretty poorly on a country and government which supposedly is
trying to shift from a "get stuff out the ground and sell it" to a knowledge
economy...

~~~
feralmoan
Moving from commodity based, bricks and mortar investment focus to an
abstract, information industry innovating mindset is a huge paradigm shift for
most Australians. It has unfortunately been popular mantra that banking, real-
estate, commodities or finance-oriented (to fund commodity) business is the
bread and butter for a happy, future-proof life and not easy to break. Many
people have done well under that mantra, by island standards. To put it
another way, as a country of very few people, those with the power to control
the narrative can, and do so, in servicing that agenda. It's shameful. John
Howard's pontifications of Australia 'punching above its weight' were a
painful misrepresentation and yet many continue to buy into such impoverished
thinking.

~~~
jacques_chester
Different countries can be good at different things.

------
CyberFonic
I've been working in Australian IT since the late 1970's and never once did
anybody ask whether I had ACS membership.

When I graduated from uni, I looked at the ACS requirements and they were all
to support the status quo of the 1960's EDP era. So I wouldn't have been
accepted even if I tried. Even though I had the best computer engineering
qualifications available at the time.

Over the years the ACS members I have had the misfortune of working with
couldn't program their way out of a wet paper bag, not even using COBOL or
RPG. Of course, as other comments here indicate, they abided by the Peter
Principle and had been promoted to their level of utter dismal incompetence to
muddle management.

------
_dark_matter_
All that about the pamphlet, not a big deal. But the payments at the end for
accreditation? That seems to be a worse offense. Of course, if companies are
only accepting applicants accredited by the ACS, they must be missing out on
SOME people.

~~~
djt
I think the main problem is you need the accreditation if you want to apply to
immigrate. As I understand it even if you are from overseas and study at a
Australian university you would still need to get the accreditation to apply
for a visa.

~~~
jms
It seems to me this is one of the key functions of the organisation - to act
as a pseudo governmental entity to asses qualification and experience claims
relating to IT.

I believe it also exists to provide a framework around CPD (continuing
professional development), but I'm not sure how relevant this is to our
industry.

~~~
jpatokal
Paying to vet the qualifications of people who have studied and worked
overseas is not unreasonable -- but having to pay them $425 to certify that an
accredited Australian university's CS diploma is, in fact, an accredited
Australian university's CS diploma is ludicrous.

------
shaurz
My rule of thumb is that anyone who uses the term "ICT" is talking out of
their backside.

------
mattbarrie
Anyone care to submit an entry? :)

[http://www.freelancer.com/contest/T-shirt-Design-for-
Austral...](http://www.freelancer.com/contest/T-shirt-Design-for-Australian-
Computer-Society-13298-byentry-1044584.html)

------
profdgrant
In New Zealand just now, there is a national scandal over a system called
Novopay. Google this to get the details. It is a payroll system for NZ
teachers. It is complex, developed by an Australian firm, and full of errors.
The errors in operation are such that teachers get the wrong pay, pay the
wrong tax, and even get no pay on occasions. Public servants have been sacked,
and government ministers are in trouble.

It is because we need to avoid such problems that we need software developers
who can develop systems that actually meet their specifications, tested to
provide assurance that they do. This is why we need certification of
professionals (of their competency, and with expectation that they will behave
ethically when there are problems with systems), and why we need accreditation
of qualifications that provides external confidence that educational
institutions are producing graduates who are of a standard that they can be
expected to grow into competent professionals.

Most "developed" countries have schemes aimed at this - imperfect, and
certainly needing improvement - and most are managed by professional societies
- the organisations comprised of IT professionals who give voluntarily of
their time to serve their colleagues and their profession, to no personal
benefit.

In Australia this is the case with the ACS, which sees itself as the guardian
of professional standards. Hence ACS provides certification of professionals
(the CP scheme), and accredits university courses in IT, according to
international standards. In both certification and accreditation, ACS serves
as the Australian implementor of international standards that are widely
accepted throughout the world, and particularly in our Asia-Pacific region. If
you are interested, google "IP3" and "Seoul Accord" to find out more.

ACS may be imperfect in that role (this is inevitable), but seeks to improve,
continuously, and always aims to respond to identified genuine problems with
the ways it conducts its business. In order that the profession of IT should
mature, and deliver outcomes acceptable to society at large, ACS has a goal
that increasing numbers of professionals should become certified, and believes
that ultimately mandatory certification of at very least senior professionals,
charged with managing major projects or leading the design of technical
solutions, should be established (paralleling other professions, which, over
time, have been recognised as being of such critical importance that
competence should be certified).

There will always be those who prefer to avoid any kind of regulation or
oversight, any kind of distinction that identifies those in whom greater trust
can be placed. But the Novopay system in NZ is just the latest example of
medium to large systems worldwide, with critical roles in wider society, whose
failure illustrates the need for software systems developers to lift their
game, and which begs the introduction of quite stringent requirements on
senior developers and managers who claim competence to develop such systems.

As the Vice President of ACS charged with oversight of certification and
accreditation, I am always keen to have input from wise professionals who
believe they can improve the way we conduct our business. If you have
considered input, then please contact me so that we may benefit from your
wisdom.

Professor Doug Grant FACS CP ACS Vice President (Membership Boards)

------
mylittlepony
I'm sorry Australia, you are not getting me as a skilled worker (I thought you
were in need of IT experts with fluent english). No seriously, I stumbled upon
this issue some time ago, and that wasn't the first or last paywall. You have
to pay for everything, even if you end up being rejected (not that I couldn't
afford it, but f*ck that). Kind of offtopic, but I also saw they have some
serious discrimination issues (it's not even about skin color, which I don't
care since I'm white, they just don't want foreigners). Back to Google Maps to
find a different destination.

~~~
dbaupp
Just out of interest, what are the discrimination issues? (I'm Australian so I
don't ever get an outsider's perspective, but it'd be nice to have some
understanding of what others think of us.)

~~~
mylittlepony
Well I was watching videos trying to catch the Australian accent, which I
found to be very cool... One video led to another, and somehow I ended up
watching this: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp6J6PF47CM>

From another angle, and longer explanation:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsWhGBgbUsc>

I have never seen something like that in real life, I couldn't believe it.

~~~
jpatokal
There's 22 million people in Australia, don't assume a few idiots reflect the
entire country. Neither my wife nor I were born here, but as parents with a
mixed-race kid and experience of living on four continents, we haven't found a
better place to bring him up yet.

~~~
mylittlepony
Indeed, but to be fair, 22 million is nothing, especially for a country so big
as Australia. Also, it wasn't just one crazy person or crazy group. They were
random people in a bus, and they had the same anger and hate. Wtf was that?

I'm curious, where in Australia do you live if I may ask?

~~~
jpatokal
Melbourne, same city as the bus attack. For what it's worth, that took place
in Frankston, one of the city's dodgier suburbs, which has a reputation for
crime, drug problems and lots of "bogans".

~~~
rommelvr
haha, Frankston... explains a lot.

