Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
end of 1975, 31,351 candidates had taken the CDP and 15,115 had been
awarded the certifi cate.
8
Although it is diffi cult to fi nd accurate employ-
ment information for software workers in this period, estimates from the
Bureau of Labor indicate these 15,115 CDP recipients constituted
approximately 10 percent of the overall computing community.
The CDP examinations represented just one step in the DPMA's ambi-
tious “Six Measures of Professionalism Program,” which included not
only the development of standards of competence and codes of ethics
but also programs for public service, continuing education, and funda-
mental research. Of these six measures, only the CDP program achieved
even moderate industry acceptance. Nevertheless, simply by articulating
a clear professional agenda the DPMA claimed for itself a leadership role
in the computing community. Given the general lack of agreement about
what skills and educational background were appropriate for computing
personnel, the CDP program promised to guarantee at least a basic level
of competence. Employers viewed certifi cation as a tool for screening
potential employees, evaluating performance, and assuring uniform
product and quality.
9
Programmers saw it as an indication of profes-
sional status, a means of assuring job security and achieving promotions,
and an aid to fi nding and obtaining new positions.
10
The certifi cation of
practitioners was generally considered to be one of the characteristic
functions of any legitimate profession, and the professionalization of
programming was seen by many at this time as the solution to a growing
sense of crisis within the computing community.
11
The “question of
professionalism,” as it came to be known in the literature, would come
to form the basis for explicit discussions of the software crisis in the late
1960s.
The growing discontent with a perceived lack of professionalism
among computing personnel was in part a legacy of the massive expan-
sion of the commercial computer industry over the course of the previous
decade. As the
Datamation
editorial suggests, one response to the per-
sonnel crisis of the 1950s had been an infl ux of new programmer trainees
and vocational school graduates into the software labor market. “The
ranks of the computer world are being swelled by growing hordes of
programmers, systems analysts and related personnel,” warned a report
in 1968 by the SIGCPR, and as a result “educational, performance and
professional standards are virtually nonexistent.”
12
And although com-
puter specialists in general were appreciative of the short-term benefi ts
of the ongoing personnel shortage in the computer industry—among
them, above-average salaries and plentiful opportunities for occupational
