Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
status, greater autonomy, improved opportunities for advancement, and
better pay.
22
The professionalization efforts of programmers were generally encour-
aged by their corporate employers. An increasing number of corporate
managers were beginning to blame their growing dissatisfaction with the
rising costs of software development on the lack of professionalism on
the part of programmers. Professionalism, or at least a certain form of
corporate-friendly professionalism, was represented by managers as a
means of reducing corporate dependence on the whims of individual
programmers.
23
It was also thought that professionalism might solve a
number of other pressing management problems: it might motivate staff
members to improve their capabilities; it could bring about more com-
monality of approaches; it could be used for hiring, promotions, and
raises; and it could help solve the perennial question, Who is qualifi ed?
24
“The concept of professionalism,” argued one personnel research journal
from the early 1970s, “affords a business-like answer to the existing and
future computer skills market” by making computer personnel respon-
sible for policing their own disciplinary identity.
25
Professionalism
appeared to provide a familiar solution to the increasingly complex
problems of managing the relationship between business and technologi-
cal expertise.
In response to these various motivations to professionalize, program-
mers in the late 1950s and early 1960s worked to establish the institu-
tional structures traditionally associated with the professions. These
included the development of an academic infrastructure for supporting
theoretical computer science research; support for industry-based certi-
fi cation and licensing programs; the establishment of professional societ-
ies and journals; the introduction of performance standards; and
professional codes of ethics. Many of these institutional structures devel-
oped rapidly and were established on a provisional basis by the end of
the 1950s.
But the existence of professional institutions did not necessarily trans-
late readily into widely recognized professional status.
26
The early adop-
tion of the structures of professionalism, however, obscured the deep
intellectual and ideological schisms that existed within the programming
community. Although many practitioners agreed on the need for a pro-
gramming profession, they disagreed sharply about what such a profes-
sion should look like. What was the purpose of the profession? Who
should be allowed to participate? Who would control entry into the
profession, and how? What body of abstract knowledge would be used
