[Sigia-l] What happened to the good IAs

[Karl Fast]

> Karl, I think Dick was just saying that it is complicated to
> implemented. That's what I understood anyway.

Dick's right. No matter what kind of certification you're talking
about, it's a long and complicated process. 

I was responding to Ziya, however. I said it was a complicated issue
(in more than just implementation), and Ziya asked why I made such a
claim.

No matter what angle you look at, I think certification is a complex
issue. I'm sure that's especially true of implementation, though
thankfully I have no direct experience with it.


> And we will never be able to certify IA until we define the damn
> thing, which we obviously will never do.

I'm not entirely sure about that. As precedent I'd cite engineering
(my undergrad degree, BTW). For most of it's history, engineering in
Canada has operated without a formal definition.

Engineers belong to a special class of professions, along with
laywers and doctors and architects, that are protected and
"certified" through an act of legislation. This gives them a lot of
power, legal status, and protection. But there are downsides,
notably the high entry barrier: it takes a lot of time and money to
enter these professions.

Surprisingly, there was no formal definition of engineering in
Canada until the late 80s, even though engineers had been protected
by legislation in every province for decades, often going back to
when the province was created.

In effect, the legislation provided what we could call a 'de facto'
definition, or perhaps a 'working' definition. That is, engineering
was whatever a professionally licensed engineer did, more or less.

My only point here is that the definition can follow from practice,
instead of the other way around. We don't need to have a perfect
definition to pursue certification, only a reasonable one (I'm not
saying we should pursue certification or nail down a definition;
just trying to explicate the relationship between the two).





-- 
Karl Fast
http://www.livingskies.com/