From: mct@praxis.co.uk (Martyn Thomas)
Newsgroups: uk.bcs.misc
Subject: Re: Can I be a member? No.
Date: 11 Dec 92 10:06:37 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Praxis, Bath, U.K.

peter@micromuse.co.uk (Peter Galbavy) writes:

:I have always believed that the BCS was an old boys club, and have never
:intention of joining. Our company has about 20 professionals who *do not
:need* the BCS. Why does anyone want to be a member ? Serious question -
:not rhetorical...

And this is a serious answer, from an employer.

Software is an engineering structure. (complex, used for important purposes,
difficult to analyse fully,etc).

Software development is an engineering profession. (or should be - but it's
currently immature).

Because of its immaturity and very rapid growth, most practitioners lack the
appropriate training and education, and are not very competent (this
may include most BCS members) (evidence: the SEI surveys using the
capability maturity model, the Price Waterhouse DTI survey on software
quality, the ESPRIT BOOTSTRAP survey, MoD's expressed views on its
suppliers, the big banks' experiences with IT reported at meetings and
conferences, the contents of comp.risks, etc).

Software looks easy, and there are plenty of practitioners who believe that
they can develop excellent software despite their lack of appropriate
education and training and experience (a minority of them are right -
including, no doubt, all the readers of this newsgroup :-). 

Nevertheless, employers and customers need to be able to tell the engineers
(some of whom may be useless) from the others (some of whom may be
excellent), because overall the ability of qualified engineers will increase
(it worked for other engineering disciplines) and because the professional
engineering tradition provides an ethical status and a structure for
continuing education.

The BCS is attempting to be the professional society for software (and other
"information systems") engineers. The profession needs them to succeed (or
to cede the role to the IEE, and for the IEE to give sufficient attention to
the rate of change in software engineering). Engineers need a professional
society to administer qualifications, represent the profession, maintain
standards, guard ethics, represent public interest ... ...

I believe that customers wil increasingly require that senior people leading
software projects are CEng. The BCS provides a route (although not a smooth
one for those without a "numerate" degree). This is already starting on
safety-related projects. It is only a matter of time for other bespoke systems.

I also believe that the pressure on pay for programmers is downwards
and that the better qualified "engineers" will be paid better than their
less qualified colleagues (lots of reasons, but just look at other
engineering professions for comparisons).

These changes will hurt people, and the industry will resist them. Many
people who would be adversely affected will deny that the changes will
occur, because the alternative is emotionally unacceptable. They may be
right, but I do not think so (and history is against them).

The BCS isn't perfect, but it is trying to do an important job. I encourage
you to join it and help.
-- 
Martyn Thomas, Praxis plc, 20 Manvers Street, Bath BA1 1PX UK.
Tel:	+44-225-444700.   Email:   mct@praxis.co.uk