[LINK] The Ethics (!) of Dodgy Web Designers

[Karl Auer]

On Wed, 2007-04-18 at 15:42 +1000, Craig Sanders wrote:
> there's a difference between hacking something up for yourself
> and doing it, for pay or otherwise, for others. competence and
> professionalism and attention to detail are *mandatory*
> requirements for the latter

You are confusing "mandatory" as in "required by law" with "mandatory"
as in "required by reality". The whole point of Rick's initial message
was that anyone can grab some tools and whip up something without having
the ghost of a clue as to how it works or what the consequences will be
if it is used.

> or YOU could avoid embarassing yourself by, in future, not taking
> obvious hyperbole at literal face-value.

Would that it were hyperbole. You wrote that at the end of an entire
missive devoted to supporting it pretty much as written. You are clearly
of the opinion that the clueless should be prevented (by some
unspecified mechanism) from using tools that they do not properly
comprehend, though you qualify that to "if what they produce is to be
used by others".

I think you are wrong.

Here's my point (no hyperbole, for the hyperbole-detection impaired): We
are now in a time where seriously good, seriously high-powered software
tools are available to anyone. These tools are generally usable even by
those with very little clue as to how to use them properly, and commonly
with no clue at all as to how they work. Those able to use them properly
produce good stuff, those unable to use them properly produce bad stuff.
In between there is every possible level of variation.

This is new. Computers used to be expensive. Operating systems and
software used to be expensive. They were placed only in the hands of
those who had gone through stringent testing to prove that they were
capable of using them correctly. Now computers are cheap and operating
systems and software are mostly free. And there's a global network that
lets it all communicate.

The obvious result is that a million monkeys will start investigatin'.
They will stick their little hands into every opening. Some will piss
into them. They will remove the panels. They will twiddle every knob and
tug on every wire. They will shout into microphones and leer into
webcams. They will pick up things that other monkeys have made and try
to wear them as hats. They will rearrange things. Some will lose
fingers.

This wave of furry little idiots is humanity with a new toy, as
important a new toy as the quill once was. This is *us*, *now*.

The suggestion that people in this new environment should be dissuaded
from participation, let alone forbidden from participating is foolish,
and IMHO, makes its proponent look foolish.

Regards, K.

PS: You also wrote "i would never hire a programmer who had only a
degree and no experience". If everybody was like you, no-one would ever
*get* experience. Bit of a dead end, that. It's a good thing someone was
prepared to take a chance on *you*, hm?


-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)