petcher@TI-EG.CSNET (Malcolm_Petcher) (12/13/85)
Watching all this interchange on Ada professionalism, and software professionalism in general, I have finally felt compelled to jump into the fray. For one thing, I think singling out Ada as an area of specialization and a target for professionalization is ridiculous. Sure, Ada is a complex language, but no more complex than the real-time embedded systems it is designed to implement, and certainly not as specialized. Ada simply embodies many of the capabilities required for such implementations, freeing the engineer from having to implement such capabilities from scratch. It also embodies significant support for an orderly configuration management environment, another area where traditionally engineers on development projects have had to implement from scratch and get bit by their mistakes. In the light of these facts, I have to conclude Ada actually opens the doors of real-time embedded applications to more engineers, and thus reduces the need for any sort of selectivity. As far as the professionalism thing in general, all the comparison continues to be with doctors, lawyers, and occasionally CPA's. The business environment of these professionals has little in common with the engineering environment, so I must discount any analogies drawn. In engineering, at least within all facets of my exposure to it, there is a lot of emphasis on the continued use of the more experienced people to guide and review the work of those with less experience. In general, the less experienced engineers welcome this relationship because it helps them to become more productive faster, and the end result is a very professional environment without the need for any sort of regulation or licensing. The few who have an un-professional attitude and resent such guidance and review either change their attitude or wash out from the profession long before they have a chance to do any damage.