Malaysia government to draft insane Act for Computing Professionals

https://plus.google.com/116040656840015645378/posts/1byMQhGvREn

by kureng • 15 years ago

52 38 15 years ago

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waitwhat5• 15 years ago

But an Act just like we have for engineers/architects/lawyers/doctors only shows that there is monopoly coming soon.

I know very little about Malaysia, so I can't say for sure whether licensing engineers/architects/lawyers/doctors has been a net positive there, but I strongly suspect that it has been, just like everywhere else in the world that has tried it. It is certainly not "insane".

Remember, lots of people in IT don't even have degrees in their respective fields -- thats the beauty of IT.

Similarly, the problem with IT (from back street "computer repair" guys, through to "systems integration engineers" from large consultancies) is that there are too many dodgy chancers who have no real idea what they're doing, and who end up bodging everything together with spit and bailer twine.

Suggesting that this is a problem that the industry has had decades to solve on its own and has failed, and that it might now be time for the government to get involved is certainly not "insane" either.

henrikschroder3• 15 years ago

There's a big difference between IT and the other licensed fields is that they are mature professions where change is slow and a university education and a license actually means competence, and the expectations of their clients are sane and bounded.

IT is an immature profession, change is rapid, best practice are constantly changing, client expectations are insane and unbounded, and there are many, many people in the industry with a university degree that can't program their way out of a cardboard box, while there are people with no formal education and a few years of experience that are better than most veterans.

The skill of a programmer depends too much on creativity, so a license can only guarantee half of the skillset, not the entire skillset, and therefore it's worthless.

waitwhat5• 15 years ago

The degree issue is a bit of a red herring, to be honest: it is not obvious that a particular degree would be either necessary or sufficient for certification (either in general, or the specific case of Malaysia.)

For example, in the UK a three-year accounting degree only shaves ~6 months off the time needed to become professionally qualified, and many accountants studied something else at university anyway.

twelvechairs• 15 years ago

As an architect (buildings, not software) I can say that there are both many highly capable people who are not licensed, and many poor practitioners who are licensed architects. I couldn't be sure if this was the same for lawyers/doctors/engineers etc. My guess is that it is probably similar for lawyers but less true for others....

I believe in private accreditation (in computers this is already common for some jobs, through accreditors like Microsoft, Cisco, etc.) and letting end clients make their own judgements as to whether private accreditation is necessary for their choice of professional.

I do not believe in public accreditation, which is often a single-system for diverse fields (eg. architecture) and actually limits people from calling themselves by a commonly known job title (eg. you cant call yourself an 'architect' unless you pass this single [often poor] accreditation procedure).

bad_user• 15 years ago

There are licensed medics out there that can't perform CPR (I've seen one). My government is filled with licensed incompetents that get paid for sitting on their asses from 9 to 5, with a launch break in between. Usually when people see incompetence in action, trying to do the right thing, they'll just throw their hands in the air waiting for a solution from the government.

But licenses encourage bribery, nepotism and other means of gaming the system. The effects are quite contrary to what people want.

Instead, grant these licenses by default without fees or limits, then let the employer decide if a candidate is good enough. Let the market decide if the employer is good enough. And if people's lives are threatened because of somebody's incompetence, then invalidate his license for a couple of months or permanently. If people's lives are lost because of incompetence, then throw that somebody in jail.

This is a system based on meritocracy and punishment in case of big failures. It works a lot better than a government imposed barrier to entry.

jawngee• 15 years ago

waitwhat.

It's such a huge problem that the advancement of technology surely has been completely stunted the world over. /sarcasm

The problem is what you are licensing exactly. I don't know how many "certified" developers I've worked with who were complete freaking idiots. A license isn't some sort of quality signifier, it's just more bureaucracy and government involvement in a field that moves too rapidly for certification to keep up.

There aren't that many "dodgy chancers". They don't survive in the industry, otherwise the industry falls over on itself.

fleitz2• 15 years ago

Our world is made of spit and bailer twine. The only difference is the skill at which one uses spit and bailer twine. IIRC LCD panels still have a manufacturing step involving rubbing wool on them, because rubbing wool on an LCD 'makes it work'.

It's only those of us who see spit and bailer twine as all we need that can manage to turn a hacky property of silicon into NAND gates and from NAND gates an iPhone.

If you still doubt it's spit and bailer twine, consider this picture: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/talk/transistor.gif

The real professionals are those that can pair their twine with a slick marketing document.

StavrosK• 15 years ago

> It's only those of us who see spit and bailer twine as all we need that can manage to turn a hacky property of silicon into NAND gates and from NAND gates an iPhone.

Are you seriously suggesting that the same train of thought that "rubs wool on LCDs because it 'makes them work'" was responsible for turning silicon into an iPhone?

sek2• 15 years ago

Waitwhat?

Did you ever read the name of this site? It is called "Hacker" News.

Learning Java at college doesn't change anything for the computer repair guy. I know what government means then, you have to hire a 4000$ guy to repair your computer who doesn't know how to do it.

waitwhat5• 15 years ago

Why do you believe that there will be a single certification?

henrikschroder3• 15 years ago

> Suggesting that this is a problem that the industry has had decades to solve on its own and has failed, and that it might now be time for the government to get involved is certainly not "insane" either.

I remember ten years ago when people had certifications from either Sun or Microsoft. They were completely worthless, and the people that had them fell in one of three categories:

1) The ones who got them as a joke, but were actually competent

2) The ones who got them seriously, to try to hide their incompetence

3) IT consultants who did jobs for big, boring, government agencies, or big, boring corporate IT departments and got them out of necessity to score those contracts.

I see no reason to believe that a government backed IT license wouldn't suffer the same fate, and since those licences were useless, the government one will be, and therefore the suggestion is insane.

However, there are industry certifications that aren't worthless, I place high value on the top Cisco networking certifications, but it's also very important to note that that part of IT is the most like conventional engineering and client expectations are sane and bounded. I see a pattern. Do you?

jasonkester• 15 years ago

Ah yes, I remember them fondly. According to my MCSD records, Microsoft has certified that on three separate occasions in the early 2000's, I had an extra $100 in my pocket and an hour to kill.

The scary thing was that you could pretty much take those exams cold if you worked with the technology at all, yet you'd meet these extremely nervous looking people in the waiting room at the testing center talking about how they hoped their 6-week prep class would pay off and they'd be able to pass this time.

_delirium• 15 years ago

The main difference I see is that computers are quite pervasive, so requiring professional licensing for everything computational would be a draconian step, while in other cases the licensing tends to be limited to "official" applications of the expertise, like signing off on a bridge design (though the legal field does overreach imo, with the cartel instincts kicking in and trying to get things like Nolo books banned).

For example, should I need government licensing before I'm allowed to sell a $0.99 iPhone game? Is there any real public-interest reason for such a licensing regime?

I tend to think certifying the safety/quality of products or systems is a better approach than certifying people. In the U.S., for example, it is not common (contrary to some countries) for engineers making consumer products (as opposed to civil infrastructure) to be licensed professional engineers. Instead, the products themselves are tested; for example, a toaster has to pass various safety tests before it can be sold.

ataggart• 15 years ago

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, we'll get government to fix it." Now they have two problems.

teyc2• 15 years ago

As someone who lived in Malaysia, you have to understand the political climate there.

University places are allocated based on racial quotas. Therefore, the people who are most concerned by this legislation are ethnic Chinese, who are more likely find themselves disqualified from doing certain work due to their inability to access higher education places.

Alternatively, businesses may be forced to hire degree'd people to sign off work as theirs even if these people didn't do any of the programming.

golvin2• 15 years ago

As a Malaysian, I beg to differ. It's true that we have to know the political climate, but the political climate you're looking at is only a small part of it.

If this bill is passed, it will not only hurt people of a particular ethnicity, but everyone and the whole IT industry in the country.

Given the track record of the incumbent political party, I strongly believe that most of the 'registered' people will be the people who are very close to them. The 'registered' people will make use of their status to get themselves into rent-seeking activities to take advantages of the companies/people who genuinely want to start up an IT company or involve in an IT project. This will in turn hurt the IT industry in Malaysia, which is already very weak due to current rent-seeking activities. What will happen eventually? More brain drain to the country, and not to forget a stagnant, if not backward-moving, IT industry in Malaysia.

You only see the racial thing here because you are not looking at the bigger picture. It's true enough that the 'registered' people will most probably be ethnic Malays, but those are ethnic Malays who are close to the incumbent party. The majority of the ethnic Malay will get as little as the ethnic Chinese get.

EDIT:

> University places are allocated based on racial quotas. Therefore, the people who are most concerned by this legislation are ethnic Chinese, who are more likely find themselves disqualified from doing certain work due to their inability to access higher education places.

It's true that qualified ethnic Chinese are having less chance to enter the public colleges, but most of them who can't get into public colleges go for private colleges or study abroad instead. In average, the literacy and qualification of ethnic Chinese is higher than other ethnics in Malaysia. So it's untrue to say that they are concerned due to their inability to access higher education. While there probably is an issue of education equality but the bill does not relate to the issue.

ajuc3• 15 years ago

Regulation isn't always good. I'd say it's mostly bad. For example - in my country for more important contracts (like selling house, etc) there is a requirement, that apart from both sides signs, that "notariusz" (dictionary says it's notary public) will sign this contract.

"Notariusz" is regulated job, there is constant amount of them (you have to pass very hard exam to become one, and mostly being a notariusz goes from father to son ,because others won't pass exams somehow). People are required to hire a notariusz to check important contracts, and notariusz gets percentage of contract worth for a work, that any intelligent people will do anyway (like checking ground register before buying a house, etc).

I do think they are sometimes usefull, but why regulate them? Why are they mandatory? People that want to risk should be able to risk, people that want to be safe can pay more to be safe. In IT various schools and certificates exists, so people can prove, that they are good enough to do some job. There are bad schools and better schools and certificates, why do you think state will be better at assesing people qualifications than private company (which sole buisness model will depend on being good at that). Why is state always trying to do others work?

I'd much prefer free market in such matters. The same goes for engineers, architects, etc. Just make sure people are responsible for their errors, and there would be cheap but risky architects, and expansive but safe ones. And insurance companies would require you to hire these with respectable certificates.

No need for state to mess with this.

waitwhat5• 15 years ago

I'm curious how you stand on the regulation of insurance companies. Do you think this is something that the free market should also take care of? And what about (retail) banks?

learc83• 15 years ago

Who are these "back street 'computer repair' guys", and "dodgy chancers", and where are you seeing them?

If there were some sort of magic certification regime that would guarantee, a programmer knew what he was doing, you can be certain such a certificate would already exist.

You also seem to have just ignored all the problems that exist with mandatory doctors and lawyers guilds. For example the AMA hasn't allowed any new Medical schools to open in the US since the early 80s.

There is a reason doctors and lawyers are so expensive, it's because their guilds have an incentive to keep them artificially scarce.

Right now IT is one of the few professional fields where you can essential apprentice your way to a job. I can guarantee that were we to establish a mandatory governing body, a degree would be required.

Hell, in Florida they require Interior Decorators to have an approved degree (very narrow definition of approved degree too, I might add).

In Georgia (where I live), the board who overseas General Contractors, ruled they have $1,000,000 in assets in addition to the insurance they were already required to have to cover damages. The only reason it was passed was to protect the jobs of established contractors, who were being forced to compete with lower wage Mexican labor.

That kind of thing will happen to the IT industry if you regulate it similarly.

guard-of-terra• 15 years ago

If they do so they' face a huge talent hit, their IT would suffer from brain drain and would be lagging compared to the rest of world and eventually they'd realize the problem.

rs2• 15 years ago

I'm Malaysian. I was going to setup a development team in Malaysia.

Now, I'm thinking twice.

After reading the draft Act, the people responsible for this are still leaps and bounds behind the curve, by the sheer fact that something like this can even reach a "draft" stage.

rs2• 15 years ago

Sigh, read this a little more and its very dysfunctional.

Basically, they're setting up a list of accredited computing professionals and companies, and the kinds of services that they can perform. This is a public register, and anyone can look at it.

Imagine you've just started a project, and you're qualified for Java and some database. In the project, you end up using a bit of Python here and there to help with some scripting because it is pragmatic and it makes sense. If someone notifies the "board" that you did this, you could get into trouble. And the "trouble" may put you behind bars for up to 3 years.

Take another situation: I end up hiring a bunch of Ruby developers, all of whom are on the register. Along comes a client who needs some work done in PHP, which naturally, being good Ruby developers, they can pick it up quite easily. But to conform to this new "Act", I will have to turn down the business as I don't want to risk going to prison.

Where's the sense in all of this ?

fadzlan• 15 years ago

I'm interested on reading the draft of the act. Can you share on the link that you got of the draft, if any?

golvin2• 15 years ago

Go to the Google+ link on the top. The draft link is in one of the comments in the Google+ post.

csomar• 15 years ago

It's a problem worth discussing. I'm working on the IT field without a degree, and I'm not totally opposed to that.

I want to check the doctor tomorrow. How can I be sure that he is a real doctor and not just a "will heal for food" man.

That's a serious problem. Not every boss/CEO/manager can assess an IT consultant proficiency. They need a proof that they can do the job.

The problem is that academy is broken. The certificate you get (degree) from University is not a real mirror of your capabilities. What government is trying to do is to solve a problem with a broken solution.

litmus2• 15 years ago

In Turkey, this exists and is in my view indefensible in its current implementation. The software folks are grouped in with the electrical engineers, although the cs people will have their own organization soon by the looks of it. There are very few CS departments that call themselves "Computer Science" instead its called Computer Engineering because of the Turkish bias to anything with word `engineer' in it. A lot of big contracts require companies to have registered engineers, who in turn force their software engineers to register. Once you register you automatically owe them 65 dollars a year from the date you graduated, or a max of 325 dollars for all the previous years, and then 65 a year for every year after that. If you consider how many engineers are walking around, thats a shit load of money ana great con frankly. Without registering you can't claim that you are a software engineer with `x amount of experience' before the law or be called into court to testify as an expert in anything software related or get gov contracts etc.

So what qualifications do you need to have to become a member?

Just cash and a valid diploma. Hell its probably easier to testify as a software expert in court for a member who pays his fees but works as a rug dealer than as a 10+ year network security analyst who isn't a member.

Any academic who supports the current implementation should have their credentials questioned, it defies logic that is attained at a high school level.

makmanalp• 15 years ago

As a turk living away, I've been isolated from these developments. What is this board called?

litmus2• 15 years ago

Elektrik Mühendisleri Odasi aka EMO

its legal basis is stated here

http://www.emo.org.tr/genel/sss.php?grubu=%DCYEL%DDK%20%DD%D...

basically if you engage in anything that is considered to be an engineering task (inc. computer/software/biomedical) you have to be registered. They are basically taxing you every year for graduating from your discipline.

edit: They claim to have 40,000 members I think, at 65 a pop that would be 2.5 million dollars a year. Not bad. Of course, as many Turks try to avoid taxes a lot of them skip these payments as well.

vilya• 15 years ago

I often wished for some kind of professional certification scheme when I was interviewing for developers, because so many of the people I interviewed were just wasting my time. It would have been a useful filter, so long as it were implemented well (which is a big if).

Since then I'm not so sure. The definition of "developer" can get a bit murky. For instance I now work in an R&D team; the researchers need to be able to code up prototypes, but the important thing for them is to be good at research rather than coding.

Malaysia government to draft insane Act for Computing Professionals

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