You are all missing the point.
I am not as concerned with the qualifications as a I am with the quality of the engineers. Self taught is not always bad.
The fact is that there is no standard level of knowledge or achievement required to develop safety critical software.
Gas fitter have to be corgi registered.
Electrical instalations have to be done or inspected by qualified people.
Accountants, Surveyors etc have to be chartered.... Bar exams, doctors blah blah.
Some of the above quals evolve and practitioners have to keep up.
There are certain basic minimums I would expect to see in safety critical code.
I would expect practitioners to be aware of those basic minimums.
The BCS chartered status may be a good standard to start with, but while there is no requirement to hold chartered status why would anyone bother?
How about if IR35 didnt apply to chartered engineers, would that make it worth having?
- Visitors can check out the Forum FAQ by clicking this link. You have to register before you can post: click the REGISTER link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. View our Forum Privacy Policy.
- Want to receive the latest contracting news and advice straight to your inbox? Sign up to the ContractorUK newsletter here. Every sign up will also be entered into a draw to WIN £100 Amazon vouchers!
Reply to: Send IT workers to jail
Collapse
You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:
- You are not logged in. If you are already registered, fill in the form below to log in, or follow the "Sign Up" link to register a new account.
- You may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
- If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.
Logging in...
Previously on "Send IT workers to jail"
Collapse
-
Whenever I hear someone claim to be a ‘software engineer’ I think of wet behind the ears fresh graduates or self-righteous Indians (which is often the same thing) with delusions of adequacy.
Leave a comment:
-
The problem is that software is such a new and strange thing that it's very hard to fit it into the same space as the engineering of physical stuff. I personally (although I have held the title of "software engineer") don't believe that software development equates in any way with the scope traditionally attributed to engineers.
If I am responsible for engineering a bridge, there are certain fundamental and well described principles that I can reasonably be expected to be knowledgeable in, and there are (for example) clearly understood data relating to the load bearing capabilities of various materials under varying circumstances that can be seen to be matters of which I ought to be aware.
If I am responsible for engineering a jet fighter aircraft, I have to deal with pretty much the same information as the engineer building the bridge - different materials, different circumstances, but pretty much the same stuff.
Software? We make it up. It is such stuff as thoughts are made of. This is its wonder, and its - well, not failing, but the reason why we are foolhardy to put much faith in it.
Granted, one ought to be aware of the order of (for example) sorting algorithms, but it's entirely possible that a quicksort will be ideal every time in ten million - yet then the one time in one hundred thousand billion turns up when a bubble sort would have been not only better, but necessary in order to get things sorted (pun intended) in the necessary time with the current dataset.
We should stop expecting software development to be as predictable as a physical engineering problem, and accept all software solutions as having all the flaws of a human solution: it will probably be great most of the time, but when it loses it, it loses it big time.
Granted, it's possible to create mathematically-provably-correct software... but that only works if it runs on always-correct hardware. Given that a cosmic ray in the wrong place at the wrong time can flip a bit in your RAM, it's probably best not to rely on it.
After all, even "real" engineers don't always get it just right
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by The Lone Gunman View PostDont you just love it when some tosser pipes up and tells you that you are wrong. Tim (nice but dim) again too.
I have been in the avionics industry for years. I have met dozens of people who have no qualifications at all in software. Senior engineers with degrees in all sorts of subjects, but no software quals. Lots of engineers with loads of quals and experience in electronics who learned to do C when soemone suggested using software to do hardware tasks. Self taught. I have sorted thousands of lines of code from these bods. Massive monolithic code structures. Discrete numbers in the code. References to board addresses in the code. No concept of software engineering.
BAe Systems, EADS and others. Not fly by nights.
What we might miss is, perhaps, a formal exam to assert whether the person is qualified to do the job (despite having or not having a degree). However, up to today no organisation has ever managed to achieve that. Perhaps because of the multiple proprietary technologies but it's hard to say who is a qualified IT consultant. And no, I think that discriminating only on the basis of the degree is totally unfair and will screen out many excellent people out of IT (and don't forget that academic studies are normally well behind the real world in this field). There are certifications, no one cares, and even the British Computer Society tried to make a standard qualification but yet no success. I think it will never be possible to really achieve some level of formal qualification standard in IT. So I wouldn't spit so much on self-learning skills as I think they are definitely the most important to have.*
*Despite all of this I believe too that are too many "cowboys", just wanted to share my doubts about formal qualifications...
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by tim123 View PostSorry, you are just plain wrong here.
There are requirements that this type of software is developed "properly" by qualified people.
Just because some fly-by-night companies have managed to get away with not doing it properly, doesn't mean that they wouldn't be up before the beak if it had killed someone.
tim
I have been in the avionics industry for years. I have met dozens of people who have no qualifications at all in software. Senior engineers with degrees in all sorts of subjects, but no software quals. Lots of engineers with loads of quals and experience in electronics who learned to do C when soemone suggested using software to do hardware tasks. Self taught. I have sorted thousands of lines of code from these bods. Massive monolithic code structures. Discrete numbers in the code. References to board addresses in the code. No concept of software engineering.
BAe Systems, EADS and others. Not fly by nights.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by The Lone Gunman View PostYet there is no requirement for safety critical software to be written by a suitably qualified, experienced and certified software engineer.
Aircraft systems, rail signalling systems and hospital equipment have all been produced using least cost rather than best qualified.
There are requirements that this type of software is developed "properly" by qualified people.
Just because some fly-by-night companies have managed to get away with not doing it properly, doesn't mean that they wouldn't be up before the beak if it had killed someone.
tim
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Hemingfield View PostI think you are refering to the secular elite of the time who were exhorbitantly few in numbers and had control over how history remembers them. The 'Establishment' didn't just appear over-night.
The man on the street I referred to is the 98% of the rest of the population whose main axis in life were turnips. After a 23 1/2 hour graft at' mill, if you'd stopped them on their trudge through fields back to their hovel and begin info dumping the finer qualities of SAS or the elegance of ANSI-92 SQL constraints then, I am afraid my friend, welcome to charred ember city.
You just don't know, man. You weren't there.
Returning to this point - they would probably have been very suspicious of me if I was able to visit them and show (or try and explain) them my work, although a small number of people around at the time may have been able to understand it.
Leave a comment:
-
I think you are refering to the secular elite of the time who were exhorbitantly few in numbers and had control over how history remembers them. The 'Establishment' didn't just appear over-night.
The man on the street I referred to is the 98% of the rest of the population whose main axis in life were turnips. After a 23 1/2 hour graft at' mill, if you'd stopped them on their trudge through fields back to their hovel and begin info dumping the finer qualities of SAS or the elegance of ANSI-92 SQL constraints then, I am afraid my friend, welcome to charred ember city.
You just don't know, man. You weren't there.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Hemingfield View PostIf you went back a hundred years and tried to explain to the man on the street what you did you'd be getting tied to a pole in the middle of a bonfire before you could start your second sentance.
However, even today, explaining how it all works would be lost on most people.
Leave a comment:
-
If you went back a hundred years and tried to explain to the man on the street what you did you'd be getting tied to a pole in the middle of a bonfire before you could start your second sentance.
(Ironically job-pimps would probably be viewed as flesh peddlers and get let off!)
What IT does is create something from nothing, or take something and re-engineer it to do something else. You wouldn't throw Derren Brown in gaol for being rubbish. You just wouldn't hire him again.
Where does the responsilbilty lie? The gun maker or the person who fires it?
Hem
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by sasguru View PostNow that I am a manager I just need to strategise and guide. This leaves some time to share my wisdom with CUK, for free.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by sasguru View PostThey're all buggering back now that the economy is tanking. Dodgy will have to go upmarket and hire some real pros
Leave a comment:
- Home
- News & Features
- First Timers
- IR35 / S660 / BN66
- Employee Benefit Trusts
- Agency Workers Regulations
- MSC Legislation
- Limited Companies
- Dividends
- Umbrella Company
- VAT / Flat Rate VAT
- Job News & Guides
- Money News & Guides
- Guide to Contracts
- Successful Contracting
- Contracting Overseas
- Contractor Calculators
- MVL
- Contractor Expenses
Advertisers
Contractor Services
CUK News
- Streamline Your Retirement with iSIPP: A Solution for Contractor Pensions Sep 1 09:13
- Making the most of pension lump sums: overview for contractors Sep 1 08:36
- Umbrella company tribunal cases are opening up; are your wages subject to unlawful deductions, too? Aug 31 08:38
- Contractors, relabelling 'labour' as 'services' to appear 'fully contracted out' won't dupe IR35 inspectors Aug 31 08:30
- How often does HMRC check tax returns? Aug 30 08:27
- Work-life balance as an IT contractor: 5 top tips from a tech recruiter Aug 30 08:20
- Autumn Statement 2023 tipped to prioritise mental health, in a boost for UK workplaces Aug 29 08:33
- Final reminder for contractors to respond to the umbrella consultation (closing today) Aug 29 08:09
- Top 5 most in demand cyber security contract roles Aug 25 08:38
- Changes to the right to request flexible working are incoming, but how will contractors be affected? Aug 24 08:25
Leave a comment: