Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
'custodians.' 'Programmer' was considered a higher-class enterprise than
'coder,' and things have a tendency to move in that direction.”
113
As the
programming community broke down into competing factions—such as
theoretical versus practical, certifi ed versus uncertifi ed, and the ACM
versus the DPMA—its members lost the leverage necessary to push
through any particular professionalization agenda.
In addition to internal rivalries, the aspiring computing professions
also faced external opposition. For many corporate managers, profes-
sionalism was a potentially dangerous double-edged sword. On the one
hand, “professionalism might motivate staff members to improve their
capabilities, it could bring about more commonality of approaches, it
could be used for hiring, promotions and raises, and it could help deter-
mine 'who is qualifi ed.'” On the other hand, “professionalism might
well increase staff mobility and hence turnover, and it probably would
lead to higher salaries for the 'professionals.'”
114
Computer personnel
were seen as dangerously disruptive to the traditional corporate estab-
lishment. The last thing that traditional managers wanted was to provide
data processing personnel with additional occupational authority.
Professionalism was therefore encouraged only to the extent that it pro-
vided a standardized, tractable workforce; professionalization efforts
that encouraged elitism, protectionism, or anything that smacked of
unionism were seen as counterproductive.
Perhaps the most important reason that programmers and other data
processing personnel failed to professionalize, however, was that the
professional institutions that were set up in the 1950s and 1960s failed
to convince employers of their relevance to the needs of business. A
Computerworld
survey in 1974 indicated that “no technical society has
ever captured and held the attention of professionals in BDP.”
115
Employers looked to professional institutions as a means of supplying
their demand for competent, trustworthy employees. As we have seen,
although computer science programs in the 1960s thrived in the universi-
ties, in the business world they were usually seen as overly theoretical
and irrelevant. Likewise, the DPMA's CDP program failed to establish
itself as a reliable mechanism for predicting programmer performance
or ability. Neither the ACM nor the DPMA offered much to employers
in terms of improving the supply or quality of the programming
workforce.
Given this lack of active support from employers, the professional
associations had little to offer most data processing practitioners. Neither
a computer science education nor professional certifi cation could ensure
