Thoughts on manadotry registration of IT professionals.

Having the argument for this and comparing to “we have it for doctors” doesn’t fly. If you start playing doctor on random people, you can kill them.

Writing code and whacking it up on the net can in no way directly cause harm to someone the same way as DIY heart surgery could.

Anybody who goes and grabs random code out in the wild and runs a system on it on which human life depends gets everything they deserve. They’re the bad guys here – not those writing and sharing code.

So how do you make sure this person constructing a system on which life depends is competant? The same way you do for everybody you hire – check their resume, talk to them, have appropriate checks and balances in place.

Just because somebody has a sheet of paper means nothing about their actual ability. Remember those crappy teachers from your school years? They all had teaching degrees. Rember how the university student tutor you had was a lot better than the teacher? Hrrm… that teaching degree obviously means a lot when it comes to ability then.
I certainly wouldn’t hire at least 80% of my past fellew undergrad students – even though they have the same sheet of paper as me.

Please, everybody go read The Daily WTF and see how much even experts with certifications can get it so, so, so wrong.