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As a doctor in spe (means that I'm studying medicine) I've got to add something:
1."the brain, heart, lungs etc work very differently even though they may all be classed as "organs", they're functions share very little common functionality."
No, No, NO. Of course they have a different behaviour and use, but the human body is not a collection of organs, but instead they all work together. One example: The heart controls the blood pressure (in a way  , but itself is controled by N.vagus, which means: brain - and the kidneys, venes, ....
So, you see, everything belongs together and cannot be seperated.
2. "If considering the example of a Doctor when referring to a programmer we can say that a neuro-surgeon would not in fact be a programmer, he would be a "CPU-Architect" and thus in a different field. All programmers can be considered General Practicioners which have the fundamental knowledge of the body/computer architecture and protocols but chooses to treat symptoms/develop solutions using different tools."
Yeah, I'd agree to that. But remember, every doctor has to have knowledge about everything (in the body, of course) - and you'll be thankful for that once you get a heart attack when you visit a neuro-surgeon
(Indeed, this is the way it's handled in Germany, afaik that's a bit different in US).
3. One last thing: the medicine is now ca. 2000 years old, computer science about 100 (?), maybe, we'll all programmers will be classified in about 50 years?
Greetings and best wishes,
Andreas
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Don't forget about the use of computers in medicine. In such situations, a formal clasificiation regulated similarly to that of the medical field may be appropriate.
Google the "therac 25" if you doubt the importance.
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..
-- modified at 8:22 Wednesday 14th December, 2005
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What about the Ugly ones ???
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That is usually a given
Ever attended a microsoft .net launch event? Ugly as far as the eye can see. Not a single woman under 200lbs. Then you think: "Wait a minute, I'm part of this crowd. AHHHHHHH!"
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thrakazog wrote: Not a single woman under 200lbs
Maybe we're not going to the same launch events...
David
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Actually, make that:
There are only 10 kinds, Good ones and Band ones.
George Carlin wrote:
"Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things."
Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
If the physicists find a universal theory describing the laws of universe, I'm sure the a**hole constant will be an integral part of that theory.
My Blog[^]
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No, no and again no!
Formal classification can only help if the classification doesn't get outdated.
But in the IT world I see no chance to have a formal classification be actual and current for longer than 3 years.
If I am a carpenter my formal classification is clear. I can work with wood! And this won't change in the next years as long we have wood.
PS (OT): Thanks to Mr. Bush to be ignorant on the world clima problem so that we have a chance that carpenters will have to search for a new formal classification too... 
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They will become softpenters
SkyWalker
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Would you ask for certification, should you want to get the software "services" of a (very) small private company (made, lets say, of two persons)?
SkyWalker
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I fully agree with you!
SkyWalker
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I am not interested in a certification test at all! I would like to see projects some one has done before.
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Some day, the real world is going to come and smack you upside the head and make you realize that what you want doesn't really matter.
The simple fact is our pay checks are paid by those people who are decidedly NOT IT people and have no real concept or understanding of what it is that we do.
The reason we wear these labels and take these tests to get these little pieces of paper is not for our own purpose, but rather those that hire us. We get these certifications so that our "managers" can justify to themselves why they pay such a high salary to us to do things they just don't understand nor have any desire to understand.
Past projects have no bearing on those kinds of situations because they are not your current / future managers projects and therefore have nothing in common with them.
A medical professional specializes for a number of reasons.. first of all, the field of medicine is so diverse that there is room for specialization. Second, by gaining a specialization, that professional can command a higher wage for his or her services than someone without that specializaton.
I firmly believe that developers should seek specialization for the same reasons. IT is a very broad field, and there are definate sects of the industry that would require a definate learned knowledge. Take for example an oracle develper writting PL/SQL code... Now you would not hire that oracle developer to manage your JCL code in your OS/390 environment.
How about the Assembly guy writting embedded code for some specific piece of hardware.. would you hire someone who is a whiz-bang COM developer to fill his roll, or would you seek out another embedded developer?
Say your web services team has an opening. Would you hire an embedded systems engineer to start writting abstract .Net code or would you hire someone with experiance in the field you are looking for?
Like it or not, labels are already here.. and they are here to stay. They are already being applied to you and there is nothing that you can do about it.
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Hi, Jason:
It is true that certfications can indeed help you find a job. However, as a programmer I think what you did before is more important. I think it is more valuable to know your projects, technologies and how you solve the problems. After konwing these, it is not easy to find a wrong person for a job. I will not hire an embedded developer to work with MS .NET ASP project.
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Another thought is, I couldn't care less how you classify yourself, it's your experience that matters.
The "yes" votes is a bit depressing, IMO, because it implies that people prefer meaningless labels vs. real content.
Marc
VS2005 Tips & Tricks -- contributions welcome!
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I'm with you on that.
But I think it's truer for IT that it is for, say, physics.
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I voted yes and I hate labels -- especially meaningless ones. I do think however, that people can specialize in certain areas related to programming an can be extremely competent in that area moreso than someone who hasn't. Sometimes those areas take more than a day to master.
Jeremy Falcon
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Classification can greatly help in an industry as broad as programming. I wouldn't want somebody who specializes in print drivers to write me a web page. I also wouldn't want someone who only knows vb6 to write me a java app.
Most programmers I've run across have areas that they enjoy working in and focus their skills in that direction. Why not classify them for what they like and are good at?
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I donno... i spend most of my professional time writing UI code in C++, but am fairly handy on the technical side of web development as well. And not that i don't enjoy both, but i'd hate to limit myself to either...
And let's face it - a good number of the folks writing printer drivers would probably be better off writing web pages.
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Shog9 wrote: but i'd hate to limit myself to either...
Yeah, but you have to admit, you'd be on the top of your game if you mastered one over being great at two. Granted it may be more boring, but I don't think that's what the question relates to.
Shog9 wrote: And let's face it - a good number of the folks writing printer drivers would probably be better off writing web pages.
And a good number of cardiologists should be cleaning toilets, but I'm still glad there are ppl that specialize in it.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: Yeah, but you have to admit, you'd be on the top of your game if you mastered one over being great at two.
Sure, 'till the game changes. I could become the biggest walking library of Win32 quirks and trivia this side of Raymond Chen, only to find it obsolete when the WinFX APIs become standard. And stuff changes even faster on the web side of things!
Of the knowledge i've had the longest and still use the most, at least two-thirds of it i picked up writing games as a hobby. At least a third of the techniques i use day-to-day now for offline UIs i picked up while hacking websites.
On the other hand, a cardiologist has a pretty stable target: hearts are gonna be around for a while.
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Shog9 wrote: At least a third of the techniques i use day-to-day now for offline UIs i picked up while hacking websites.
I think the main things I have against that type of stuff is people that claim to know everything under the sun, 30 programming lanuages, etc. When they obviously don't know any one of them well enough. But, that may be due to the person.
I just think that even if you switch technologies, then you just earned a new programmer category. I mean, there is effort in learning .NET well, etc.
Shog9 wrote: On the other hand, a cardiologist has a pretty stable target: hearts are gonna be around for a while.
I hope so at least. 
Jeremy Falcon
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thrakazog wrote: Why not classify them for what they like and are good at?
Because what a good programmer is good at is learning how to be proficient in something new, adapting to new job requirements, keeping up with the latest technologies, etc.
Marc
VS2005 Tips & Tricks -- contributions welcome!
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You're correct that a good programmer should be able to adapt and learn new technologies.
But if I'm looking to have some ASP web work done. I want a ASP web programmer. Not a C++ office application programmer that will learn as he goes at my expense.
I would want an "classified" expert in the field I needed the work done in. Not a jack of all trades, master of none.
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