No subject

basically the argument. Silly as it may seem to us.

Someone on the AIfIA list pointed out an article about the
engineering thing with Microsoft. It's from a year ago and deals
with the canadian definition of engineer (which is very broad).

The CEO of the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers put the
situation this way:

  "It is pretty obvious that the certificate holders would see value
   in the use of the title 'engineer,'" she said. "But engineering
   is a profession and with that comes an obligation to protect the
   public. It is important for the public to know that the term
   'engineer' refers to a person with a university engineering
   education and engineering experience who follows a professional
   code of ethics, not someone with just a few months of IT
   training."

   Full Story: http://www.ccpe.ca/e/pub_news_02_03.cfm

Replace engineer with architect and you probably have most of their
argument. And put that way, well, they have a point that I can
understand. Let's read it that way:

  "It is pretty obvious that the certificate holders would see value
   in the use of the title [architect],'" she said. "But
   [architecture] is a profession and with that comes an obligation
   to protect the public. It is important for the public to know
   that the term [architect] refers to a person with a university
   [architecture] education and [architecture] experience who
   follows a professional code of ethics, not someone with just a
   few months of IT training."

Does putting a qualifier like "information" in front of the word
sufficiently distinguish it? I think so, and I think this whole
thing is silly.

But even though I think it's silly, I also think this should not be
taken lightly. I think this could turn into a serious problem (but
perhaps I'm paranoid).

I'm not a laywer, but I suspect that a lot of it comes down to how
architecture and the practice of architecture is definined in the
legislation.


--karl