
Programming is not a craft - fagnerbrack
https://dannorth.net/2011/01/11/programming-is-not-a-craft/
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shubb
There are other aspects to programming quality that matter to outsiders more
than idiomatic purity and The Latest Framework.

These are the kinds of things which in other fields, real engineering, are
covered by codes. The security of the system, whether it is engineered to
deliver the uptime needed for its intended use, technical aspects of disaster
recovery.

These our equivalent of the kind of thing real engineers get sued for. Krebbs
security blog reported cases where developers served medical records on the
web without even enforcing basic authentication, and it will be the company
not the developers who pay the fine (if any).

Very often, we come to a program which encodes complex business logic which is
not understandable and implements systems not written down. I once worked with
a financial services company who had no understanding of their pricing
algorithm due to staff turnover and total lack of documentation or readable
code. Should it be legal to deliver work of that quality?

Framing code craftsmanship as equivalent to these kinds of duties is strange,
because lawyers might be taught writing or speaking skill but it doesn't enter
into their professional registration. That does not mean it isn't important,
or an important thing to consider at hiring time, it's just apples and
oranges.

I think that, especially where we work on systems that can deeply impact
peoples lives, the viability of business, or safety, we need something better
than 'has worked on ISO x compliant systems' on a job spec. We need
professional registration and the ability to strike engineers off if they are
found not to be following an enforced code.

