Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
strong professional identity. And yet rivalries between the member soci-
eties, particularly the ACM and the DPMA, proved to be an endemic
and ultimately insoluble barrier to the establishment of this identity.
Participants in the various associations disagreed over membership quali-
fi cations, dues, voting privileges, and certifi cation and licensing propos-
als. More important, however, was the lack of widespread popular
support for these associations. One
Datamation
study indicated that less
than 40 percent of all programmers belonged to any professional associa-
tion, and “probably less than 1% do anything in connection with an
association that requires an extra effort on the individual's part.”
101
And
even these low fi gures were probably infl ated: a
Wall Street Journal
report from the same year revealed only that 13 percent of the data
processing personnel surveyed belonged to any professional society.
102
These numbers correspond well with the low level of interest in the CDP
certifi cation program. Although it is diffi cult to compile exact fi gures on
association membership, it is clear that at best only a small percentage
of the eligible population chose to participate in any professional
society.
If strong professional associations were widely perceived to be an
important element of professional identity, why did groups like the
ACM, the DPMA, and AFIPS have such diffi culty attracting and keeping
members? AFIPS had some obvious structural problems that almost
assured its ineffectiveness. Individuals could not directly join AFIPS; it
was merely an umbrella organization for other associations, and pos-
sessed little real authority. But what about the ACM and the DPMA, the
two largest relevant member societies? Both of these groups were estab-
lished early, were relatively high profi le, and published their own widely
distributed journals. Both were frequently mentioned as candidates for
the position of
the
professional computing association. Yet neither was
able to consolidate its control over any signifi cant portion of the disci-
pline's practitioners. The reasons behind their failure suggest the limita-
tions of professional associations as an institutional solution to the
software crisis.
The persistent confl ict between the ACM and the DPMA revealed a
much larger tension that existed within the computing community. As
early as 1959, the outlines of a battle between academically oriented
computer scientists and business programmers had taken shape around
the issue of professionalism.
103
Although both groups agreed on the
desirability of establishing institutional and occupational boundaries
around the nascent computer-related professions, they disagreed sharply
