Yes, I'd support annual testing/licensing, provided that the test was such that no engineer ever got 100%, and the bottom 10%, nationally, were injoined from practicing for a period of 5 years, during which they had to do something else instead. On passing the qualification series in the upper 90%, they'd be readmitted to the "club" but at a pay rate equivalent to what they earned outside.
Even more important than knowing the difference between NPN and PNP is the basic ability to read and extract content, and to write and include some. I've met dozens of recent graduates who can't even speak the language properly, and can't follow a simple sequential procedure.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: CLeyson_at_aol.com
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2001 3:05 AM
Subject: Re: Should engineers be licensed (Was "Geeks")
On Sat 15 Dec 2001, Jeffrey S. Sharp wrote:
> There's a big difference between writing code to solve problems and being
> a software engineer. Designing, coding, and compiling is only 40% of the
> battle. Hopefully you're also spending some time planning and testing.
The company I work for seem to have forgotten the planning and testing part
of the software design process. We had a lot of embedded software written by
outside contractors for a 486 running QNX real time OS. Over the years the
software has evolved into the hardware equivalent of a rats nest and it's been
left to our customers to find the bugs - most being "show stoppers".
I sometimes wonder just how many customers we've lost because of this.
Also, dont get me wrong, the same should be applied to hardware design.
We recently interviewed an electronics engineering graduate who didn't know
the difference between NPN and PNP transistors !! What do they teach kids
these days ??
Should engineers be licensed ? - It's not a bad idea.
Chris Leyson
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