Being
a computer expert those days in not linked
to a university degree or an acknowledgment from an association, anyone
with certain level of curiosity if I may call it, can attend training for
widely spread commercial products and start supporting them as a professional
in that product. I once met a person who graduated as civil engineer from
university, and couldn’t find a job within his domain, then he attended a
couple of Microsoft trainings, as well CCNA courses, he found a job as a system
administrator, finally after 15 years of experience he is head of IT security
in a financial company.
This
situation can never happen with the medicine profession, for anyone to practice
medicine he has to complete university degree in medicine, then go under a
residency-training period and certain exams to practice the profession, in
Jordan for example the physician has to complete the Jordanian board exam to be
able to practice his job in Jordan, its like the USMLE for the states.
The
computing world today has many branches, the include software engineering,
database administration, software development, computer engineering as well the
traditional computer science we studied at universities. Users expect the person who will work on the
computing device, whether it’s a home PC or corporate server to have an
academic degree in computer science, in addition to level of expertise and
exposure in this field, but it’s not the case always. To make it become a
profession after 10 or 20 years and with all those branches that share the same
core knowledge however, different professional practice, we have to follow the
steps of the other professions. We have to seize the opportunity that
everything is so dependent on technology and information technology, we have to
get appreciation from the society.
In
the future, a good number of the IT tasks will be automated either by software
applications or by hardware robots that we build, IT outsourcing will shift
certain jobs to countries were those tasks can be achieved in cost effective
manner. For example a system administrator might not be needed, as currently we
have lots of systems that detects failure in a service and starts it up without
user intervention. Only operator maybe needed to monitor that application and
logs. A home PC might have 50 cores instead of dual or quad core CPU’s, the
developers need to be able to develop applications to use the best of those
cores. Software developers will be needed, even after 50 years from now, they
build the systems that all professions use as their dependency on technology is
increasing.
If
code of ethics for computer profession should be developed similar to the code
of ethics from ACM for software engineering, as the profession should cover
every computer expert with certain level of degree and experience. Because in
50 years, software engineering will not be the only branch in computer
technology, their will be other branches like computer researches, computer
engineers and scientists, designers, for that it should cover all branches
under one umbrella.
References:
Denning,
P., (1998), ‘Computing the Profession’, [Online], Available from: http://www.google.com.qa/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Bjsessionid%3D93713FD3AB79C45E158BF350B0508FF6%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.92.79%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&ei=Hy2zTdDCGMTXrQfxlejIDQ&usg=AFQjCNGODWojRI9APW_xIXRlsgNkj1NvKw
(Accessed
23 April 2011)
Holmes, N.,
(2007), ‘The Computing Profession and Higher Education’, [Online], Available
from:
(Accessed
23 April 2011)
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