Ask HN: What obstacles stand in the way for a “bar exam” for programming jobs?

Why do you think that increasing the barriers of entry into software work is a good idea?

It's already happened implicitly with the rise & spread of the "technical interview". By rote memorization of a body of knowledge which may or may not be applicable to the job at hand. Given the interchange between employers, these are more alike than different.

Why would further formalization be any more valuable than say the Interior Decorator exam and license in Florida?

You would need a professional organisation to lobby for laws, but I don't see engineers in the industry coming together and forming one.

Professional organisations were a way to keep people out of a field by requiring them to have the connections or the money to afford the study materials and exam fees. And don't forget continuing education costs as well. This concept would turn away many of the anti-establishment types in the industry.

That said, we are seeing signs of standardisation in the hiring process. TripleByte is gaining traction and maybe in a few years applicants will need to be "TripleByte Certified™" before they're even considered for an interview at larger company.

However there will always be scrappy startups that eschew this and just hire whoever can code and think.

Personally, I don't have too many complaints with hiring in our industry. It's been criticised lately, but it's still more democratic than law, or finance. The sheer number of first-generation immigrants that are in Silicon Valley and NY working in the field are a testament to this.

Let me answer your question with another question.

What prevents a bar exam for reading and writing?

Would it be a good idea for such a thing to exist for the act of reading or writing books, news, or anything else involving language?

Why should this be treated any differently for speaking to a computer?

The argument that the field is still immature I think is not very convincing. Or in the very least, whatever needs to change is not going to do so within at least the next few decades, because otherwise they would have already done so. Things haven't changed that much, and software engineering is a many many decade long industry at this point. In other words, if you really care about this, push for it now, in your generation, because otherwise you won't be able to pluck from the fruits of the effort until you're already into retirement.

I think this is the same question of "Why isn't there a bar exam for medical doctors". "Being qualified" for software requires nothing less than hands-on training.

Until software moves to more apprenticeships/residencies, I'm afraid we stuck in this "infancy" of a field.

What prevents it? Employers and trade organizations that demand it.

What makes bar exams work is an industry-wide agreement that they won't allow you to do the work if you haven't passed the bar exam.

It seems that it's not (and will not be) in the best interests of most employers to disqualify people who haven't passed such an exam but otherwise seem able to do the work. Thus an effective "bar exam" can not arise voluntarily, since the required factor - motivation by a critical mass of most employers - is not there.

The other alternative is a legal requirement imposed from above, but again, there seem to be no powerful forces lobbying to forbid every non-certified person from programming a computer, neither employers nor programmers themselves nor the general public seem to want that very much.

It's called a PE (Professional Engineer) License. They introduced one for Software a few years ago. Most engineering disciplines have this and you can take the test 5 years after passing your FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) with work experience. However they are not typically needed unless you work (and sign off) on something that could be dangerous to the public. Civil engineers almost require them to work, other fields not so much. As an Electrical Engineer with an FE, I have never really seen it as being worth pursuing and maintaining, and for the software side of things even less so...

https://ncees.org/ncees-introduces-pe-exam-for-software-engi...

I would argue that the very nature of the math behind programming is cause for it not to be regulated easily. In other applied fields you don't run up against undecidable problems and Rice's theorem. If it is not possible to mathematically certify that a particular program has a particular property how can you regulate the programmers? Only allow them non-Turing complete languages?

What prevents a general exam? - Attitude

Unlike other fields, Engineering in general and software in particular are all about freedom. You can hack your car, hack your phone, WiFi etc without needing a certificate from someone. You're challenging this freedom and hacker attitude by imposing exams and creating a system that gives people 'permission' to write software (work in this field)

This will never fly. And I hope it never does.

If you're suggesting a law against hiring people who have not passed such an exam, the First Amendment would likely be an obstacle (just as the government cannot impose an licensure requirement on journalists), since source code is protected speech. However, in safety-critical systems (such as self-driving cars), the government probably can impose a regulation against using code developed by an unlicensed programmer in production.

If you're suggesting a de facto industry-standard exam, I think there just isn't enough wide agreement about what should be on the exam.

This first concert in my mind is that while programming core concepts have not changed much in 30 years, the stuff you put on your resume has. Laws don't change very often and only in small details ways. A lawyer can still reference a law passed hundreds of years ago and it's relevant in a real world in the job scenario. Programming on the other hand, is far less stable. Furthermore, employers are always looking for key words in the resume. Do you know this language and this framework? I don't think they care or evening look for core concepts (maybe a problem in it's in right).

There seems to be a belief that such an exam would produce uniformly high caliber practitioners. There are plenty of lousy members of every regulated profession.

The exams in regulated professions are designed to test that you know the jargon and general knowledge of the field (anatomy and physiology, case law, etc,). The day-to-day application of that knowledge is usually consistent with that knowledge. Outstanding members of the field are determined by years of experience and specialization.

Software doesn't meet any of those expectations. The jargon changes weekly and your expertise with O notation and hash tables means almost nothing in day-to-day practice. The fixation on evaluating candidates on those topics is more about what's handy as a way to narrow the hiring funnel than it is about measuring what's important.

Software development is a creative activity. You can't measure that. Safety critical software is developed under regulatory guidelines enforced by process requirements and certification of organizations that follow those processes.

There're plenty of certification exams in the tech field though they're never required by law, and most companies wouldn't use them as a primary criteria in making decision of new hires.

High school kids program. Some of them are surprisingly good. High school kids don't practice law. The fields simply don't compare and should not attempt the same standards.

What prevents it is there is no need to for the general well-being of society. Would it help certain interests ? Sure, but every law has its unintended effects that the lawmaker doesn't understand.

Perhaps you are asking the wrong question. Perhaps it should be "do we need a bar exam for lawyers?" What do we gain from such an exam?

Fundamentally demand supply mismatch.

These exams succeed in professions where more people are looking to enter the profession than there are jobs that will afford a comfortable lifestyle.. so the existing professionals lobby the government to setup a guild like body to "certify" and thereby limit supply of "certified professionals". The point of the exam is to limit supply and competition, it is not to ensure lawyers, accountants etc "know enough" - look at how many clients are done in by poor professional advice.

There are far far more programming jobs than people available who can program today. So this won't happen.

i find it much more valid each company running it's own technical interviewing process. Adapted to the specific knowledge ( and social skills ) required by the job at hand.

personally i like joel spolsky's model: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/10/25/the-guerrilla-guid...