
Malaysia government to draft insane Act for Computing Professionals - kureng
https://plus.google.com/116040656840015645378/posts/1byMQhGvREn
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litmus
In Turkey, this exists and is in my view indefensible in its current
implementation. The software folks are grouped in with the electrical
engineers, although the cs people will have their own organization soon by the
looks of it. There are very few CS departments that call themselves "Computer
Science" instead its called Computer Engineering because of the Turkish bias
to anything with word `engineer' in it. A lot of big contracts require
companies to have registered engineers, who in turn force their software
engineers to register. Once you register you automatically owe them 65 dollars
a year from the date you graduated, or a max of 325 dollars for all the
previous years, and then 65 a year for every year after that. If you consider
how many engineers are walking around, thats a shit load of money ana great
con frankly. Without registering you can't claim that you are a software
engineer with `x amount of experience' before the law or be called into court
to testify as an expert in anything software related or get gov contracts etc.

So what qualifications do you need to have to become a member?

Just cash and a valid diploma. Hell its probably easier to testify as a
software expert in court for a member who pays his fees but works as a rug
dealer than as a 10+ year network security analyst who isn't a member.

Any academic who supports the current implementation should have their
credentials questioned, it defies logic that is attained at a high school
level.

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makmanalp
As a turk living away, I've been isolated from these developments. What is
this board called?

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litmus
Elektrik Mühendisleri Odasi aka EMO

its legal basis is stated here

[http://www.emo.org.tr/genel/sss.php?grubu=%DCYEL%DDK%20%DD%D...](http://www.emo.org.tr/genel/sss.php?grubu=%DCYEL%DDK%20%DD%DELEMLER%DD)

basically if you engage in anything that is considered to be an engineering
task (inc. computer/software/biomedical) you have to be registered. They are
basically taxing you every year for graduating from your discipline.

edit: They claim to have 40,000 members I think, at 65 a pop that would be 2.5
million dollars a year. Not bad. Of course, as many Turks try to avoid taxes a
lot of them skip these payments as well.

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waitwhat
_But an Act just like we have for engineers/architects/lawyers/doctors only
shows that there is monopoly coming soon._

I know very little about Malaysia, so I can't say for sure whether licensing
engineers/architects/lawyers/doctors has been a net positive there, but I
strongly suspect that it has been, just like everywhere else in the world that
has tried it. It is certainly not "insane".

 _Remember, lots of people in IT don't even have degrees in their respective
fields -- thats the beauty of IT._

Similarly, the problem with IT (from back street "computer repair" guys,
through to "systems integration engineers" from large consultancies) is that
there are too many dodgy chancers who have no real idea what they're doing,
and who end up bodging everything together with spit and bailer twine.

Suggesting that this is a problem that the industry has had decades to solve
on its own and has failed, and that it might now be time for the government to
get involved is certainly not "insane" either.

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henrikschroder
There's a big difference between IT and the other licensed fields is that they
are mature professions where change is slow and a university education and a
license actually means competence, and the expectations of their clients are
sane and bounded.

IT is an immature profession, change is rapid, best practice are constantly
changing, client expectations are insane and unbounded, and there are many,
many people in the industry with a university degree that can't program their
way out of a cardboard box, while there are people with no formal education
and a few years of experience that are better than most veterans.

The skill of a programmer depends too much on creativity, so a license can
only guarantee half of the skillset, not the entire skillset, and therefore
it's worthless.

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waitwhat
The degree issue is a bit of a red herring, to be honest: it is not obvious
that a particular degree would be either necessary or sufficient for
certification (either in general, or the specific case of Malaysia.)

For example, in the UK a three-year accounting degree only shaves ~6 months
off the time needed to become professionally qualified, and many accountants
studied something else at university anyway.

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henrikschroder
Fair enough, but if a degree doesn't guarantee competence, how could a
license?

CS programmes everywhere are getting blasted by the industry for not
"producing" graduates that meet their requirements, therefore it's reasonable
to assume that a certification process would suffer the same fate.

How could such a process meet the demands of a rapidly changing industry where
different players have completely different requirements, where the language-
du-jour is constantly changing, where best practices are outdated in a few
years, and where the only way to survive is to constantly educate yourself?

I don't see how an IT license could lead to anything but a sort of tax on
corporate IT companies that wish to do business with the government.

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rs
I'm Malaysian. I was going to setup a development team in Malaysia.

Now, I'm thinking twice.

After reading the draft Act, the people responsible for this are still leaps
and bounds behind the curve, by the sheer fact that something like this can
even reach a "draft" stage.

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fadzlan
I'm interested on reading the draft of the act. Can you share on the link that
you got of the draft, if any?

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golvin
Go to the Google+ link on the top. The draft link is in one of the comments in
the Google+ post.

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guard-of-terra
If they do so they' face a huge talent hit, their IT would suffer from brain
drain and would be lagging compared to the rest of world and eventually they'd
realize the problem.

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csomar
It's a problem worth discussing. I'm working on the IT field without a degree,
and I'm not totally opposed to that.

I want to check the doctor tomorrow. How can I be sure that he is a real
doctor and not just a "will heal for food" man.

That's a serious problem. Not every boss/CEO/manager can assess an IT
consultant proficiency. They need a proof that they can do the job.

The problem is that academy is broken. The certificate you get (degree) from
University is not a real mirror of your capabilities. What government is
trying to do is to solve a problem with a broken solution.

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vilya
I often wished for some kind of professional certification scheme when I was
interviewing for developers, because so many of the people I interviewed were
just wasting my time. It would have been a useful filter, so long as it were
implemented well (which is a _big_ if).

Since then I'm not so sure. The definition of "developer" can get a bit murky.
For instance I now work in an R&D team; the researchers need to be able to
code up prototypes, but the important thing for them is to be good at research
rather than coding.

