Actually, you made a similar mistake. I am terrified if I think about amateurs taking this notion seriously and start producing code, for the same reasons that first-year programmers and even a plethora of people with a degree in computer science should not be allowed to write code in a lot of places – they lack the skills. I’ve made my living being a computer scientist for the last 23 years, and when you look at the part of my job that is practical, I mostly learned one thing: programming is hard, and most people don’t get it. I actually make a living being called in for emergency cases, fixing the mess other people made, usually in projects where time is absolutely critical. I am a “programming fireman” of sorts. And while a bunch of amateurs producing code would mean a completely new level of job security for me, I really don’t want this to happen. Frankly, it’s scary.

I am well aware that this movement is not about letting a journalist write security critical code for the new nuclear power plant that is being constructed right next to the kindergarten in your favorite suburbia, but we do get cases where amateurs write code that makes you question the sanity of the superiors would put them on the job in first place. What happens if people on your job start to learn about that “cool new script” you wrote that made the life of X so much easier and you find yourself in a position where you are asked to write more and more of that stuff, until there is a major screw up? What if there is a simple off-by-one error, and the names of all the models are shifted up or down a spot? What if someone trusted you enough to get rid of the data that allows them to do a sane mapping after that happened? I know I am making things up now, but so does everyone else in this discussion. The difference is, there are things to think about an amateur cannot know about, and this is true for every field.

Am I eligible now to give out sound medical advice because I received well above average medical training in the past? I don’t think so. Can a guy that enjoys working on his own car at weekends now substitute for the mechanic that fixes the delivery trucks at the place he works? There is a reason why people get educated and become professionals.

I am all for people learning more about computers, programming and IT in general. Heck, it would make my life so much easier it would be bliss. But please, don’t consider yourself a programmer then, and please don’t take your creations to work, where it might actually matter.