Strictly speaking, Science is never "sure"
of anything. Science proceeds by attempting to
demonstrate that current theories are incorrect
or incomplete. Gallileo's discovery of the moons
of Jupiter provided evidence that the Earth was
not the center of everything in the universe, and
it was the Religious, not the Scientific, powers
that tortured him until he withdrew his claim.
When will we see the Religious attempt to disprove
their own beliefs?
If the topic is justifying Katz' existence here, then his grammar and readability are on topic. If the topic is (say) the difficulties faced by oddballs in high school, then Katz' grammar and readability are offtopic.
I believe an author's idiocy, or lack thereof, is off-topic because it is argumentum ad hominem. The quality of the author's grammar is only on topic if it prevents someone making a good faith attempt to understand the author from doing so.
Requiring a licensed developer to sign off on all work over a certain (high) monetary value would give power to a code of ethics. There is no need for the licensing agency to be at all concerned with who is competent to program, only who has failed to comply with ethical standards such as the Coders Credo. No formal training is required for someone to "act in a manner that is in the best interests of their clients and employer, consistent with the public interest," or to "be fair to and supportive of" his or her colleagues.
It has been suggested that coding in an Open Source environment resembles the current practice of law. In New York, for the most part, the attorneys who lose their licenses to practice do so because they have taken clients' property, not because they do not argue well. I believe that coding practice would benefit from something similar, something beyond a lawsuit-at-a-time that would discourage swindlers.
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Strictly speaking, Science is never "sure"
of anything. Science proceeds by attempting to
demonstrate that current theories are incorrect
or incomplete. Gallileo's discovery of the moons
of Jupiter provided evidence that the Earth was
not the center of everything in the universe, and
it was the Religious, not the Scientific, powers
that tortured him until he withdrew his claim.
When will we see the Religious attempt to disprove
their own beliefs?
If the topic is justifying Katz' existence here, then his grammar and readability are on topic. If the topic is (say) the difficulties faced by oddballs in high school, then Katz' grammar and readability are offtopic.
I believe an author's idiocy, or lack thereof, is off-topic because it is argumentum ad hominem. The quality of the author's grammar is only on topic if it prevents someone making a good faith attempt to understand the author from doing so.
Requiring a licensed developer to sign off on all work over a certain (high) monetary value would give power to a code of ethics. There is no need for the licensing agency to be at all concerned with who is competent to program, only who has failed to comply with ethical standards such as the Coders Credo. No formal training is required for someone to "act in a manner that is in the best interests of their clients and employer, consistent with the public interest," or to "be fair to and supportive of" his or her colleagues.
It has been suggested that coding in an Open Source environment resembles the current practice of law. In New York, for the most part, the attorneys who lose their licenses to practice do so because they have taken clients' property, not because they do not argue well. I believe that coding practice would benefit from something similar, something beyond a lawsuit-at-a-time that would discourage swindlers.