Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!uh2
From: UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Programmer Licensing?
Message-ID: <89291.163651UH2@PSUVM.BITNET>
Date: 18 Oct 89 20:36:51 GMT
References: <39400056@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <242@cherry5.UUCP>
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 25

I also abhor the idea of licensing computer professionals, but there is
some bureaucratic machinery that I do favor.  In accounting and finance,
organizations pay large amounts of money to outside, independent auditors
to come in and review procedures.

Auditors do not merely check to see if the books balance.  Rather, they
are responsible for assuring stakeholders (eg, shareholders, customers,
owners, regulators) that proper and appropriate procedures are being
followed.  In these days, where accounting and finance are usually
computerized, auditors look more and more carefully at the code that
underlies these systems.

I can imagine a fairly acceptable Computer System Auditing industry.
Pay big bucks to a small cadre of the best people, who work hard to
keep up on new technologies.  These guys would be bonded, and probably
certified by a professional organization including reps from Universities
and Industry, Gov't, etc.  They would work much as auditors do.  They
would come into *your* organization, try to build a list of all computer
systems, select a few hundred of them at random, and then spend several
weeks perusing them til they felt confident that they understood them.
Their work wouldn't be finished til *you* were confident, too.

Then, they'd report that whether they believed that your systems were in
great shape, pathetic, or whatever.  You're shareholders, owners, and
customers would know more than they know today, and life would be beautiful.