On professionalism in the programming industry

Not many of you have been professionals in a wholly different field. I was a licensed architect before I became a programmer. Think bricks, steel, cranes.

We had ways of executing our work that would seem strange to an outsider. Even to a neophyte designer. But they worked - and the risk of failure and history of our profession ensured that we would continue to pass down those strange but correct ways of working.

In software, like any other knowledge-based endeavor, there is a wisdom that takes time and repeated failures to carefully develop.

That wisdom was named agile.

In bricks and steel architecture, there are state laws and organizations like NCARB that ensure all licensed architects will acquire that knowledge. There is a mandated internship process for the experienced architects to bring new people into the fold. Because the cost and risk are so high (people dying in fire, etc), it is incredibly important to continue passing that wisdom along.

Programming, however, is still an immature industry, lurching from one short-lived trend to another. The concept of carefully building long-lasting systems is a pipe dream for a huge percentage of our industry. Unfortunately, ambitious people sensed an opportunity to exploit the nascent agile and bundled a flashy but deeply flawed shallow version to anyone willing to pay, even though they had not acquired the hard-won wisdom themselves.

Management doesn't know any better. Business is interested in business, and since they are very often in direct control of how the programmers behave themselves, they do not realize what they are foisting on their technologists.

Each new generation comes along, finds themselves essentially unled, learns the wisdom the hard way, only to move out of the practice of programming and into management, at which point a new generation arrives. Rinse and repeat. When I say they learn it the hard way, I mean it takes years or even decades for mindful people to slowly experiment through trial and error to an improved path.

Our industry will continue along its lurching path until an external force imposes itself. At one point, engineers and architects did not need a license. Look up "Engineer's ring" on wikipedia. That summarizes the seriousness of their obligation.