CAUGHT

I'll add one other interesting tidbit. In our profession when we interview many companies have policies that do not allow candidates to be tested. So and interviewee who speaks well and says the right things - regardless of background - will probably get the job.

Where I am working now, I was told they cannot in anyway during interviews test the candidates knowledge of the subject. So for programmers who claim to know T-SQL or Oracle, they can't ask them questions like how would you write a SELECT statement to bring back unique rows. They can't ask anything like that.

It is just my opinion, but I think our profession is one that requires the ability to test people's know how versus just having the papers.

Another interesting tidbit. There are people with say 10+ years experience and have the "papers", but can't get jobs because employers are starting to take the "young uns" from the colleges who learned the latest technology and can talk the latest talk. Personally, I want people who can do the work and explain it to those who need to know at different levels of the business.

But that is all just my view.

You don't need training and experience -- you need practical knowledge and a firm grasp of related theory. Formal training and experience can provide those things, if you're lucky, but they can also provide nothing of worth. There are other ways to get the same things.

Paul Graham made something like $4.9 million dollars off something he and a partner started from scratch, called Viaweb, that revolutionized online business in the mid-nineties. Ya know what he majored in? Philosophy! (Incidentally, I dropped a CS major in favor of philosophy before I had even heard of Paul Graham because I noticed that majoring in CS was actually actively interfering with my ability to learn stuff about computers and programming -- plus trig and calculus suck and have nothing to do with computers above the level of circuit design.)

By all means, all else being equal, get degreed, certified, and experienced. Those things are not necessities, nor even guarantors, of being good at IT work, though. They're very likely to help, and that's all.

It actually assumes that all IT has the same needs. You can move from one specialised field to another without a problem or so some think.

Some believe that they could have been on my Engine Management Team [b]Punching Code[/b] and then move to a development team attempting to develop an [b]AI[/b] with the same [b]Skill Set.[/b]

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way for most of us, in my former position there are maybe somewhere around 20 people world wide who can do what I used to do and I know that I certainly could not move to a position of developing an AI, but it's all [b]IT[/b] work which most people don't understand.

Col

A+? MCP? CNE? MCSD? B.S. Comp Sci?

The knowledge bases for these certifications overlap in some areas, but only minimally. I know PC techs who can talk rings around the latest technology, but wouldn't recognize a DO loop if it slapped them in the face. I also know top-notch web designers from whom I confiscate tools to prevent equipment damage.

Other professions can have certifications because the basic knowledge for certification is essential to all specialties in those professions. Additionally, lack of knowledge or incompetence (in medicine or engineering, for example) can cost lives. As much as we would like to believe otherwise, the primary results of IT incompetence are financial and usually minimally so.

Having spent the past 20 something years in the mainframe arena, rising through operations and into an administrative support role, I say with confidence that the best IT person in a crisis is one who has come through the ranks and taken the knocks. But if it's theory and nice design that you want, the book learning of a grad is what you look for.

The self taught know how it really works and the practical requirements of getting things done. But the graduate brings in the new ideas and cannot be ignored.

I just wish company management did not make such a blatant distinction between the two groups because it is the self taught who often save the day when the end is looking nigh.

I guess that is, unfortunately, the truth nowadays.

In the early day?s of computing there where more woman then men in the IT field. This was in the days of data entry rooms (typing rooms) from where the computer rooms started.

As computers became more tech, more and more the job became a men's job. This due to the tending that men are more in to tech than woman are. [i]as I believe is not correct. (there was a discussion some month's back over this. Stargazerr started that one as I recollect correctly)[/i]

I do agree with you that a degree or cert isn't an absolute must in ICT. On the other hand it does help. As I have a degree in Math's and physics (but started in ICT at the bottom as comp. operator and tech supp.) my degree only helped me to move up the ladder more quickly then co-workers with-out.

[b]What made me move up the ladder was: I got experience in the ICT-field.[/b] That was and still is the real trigger.

Rob

I like that idea. Especially using the probation period. Of course in this cost cutting world, probably wouldn't get the req reopened if they didn't work out.

Although, mad hatter that I can be when I want, I have done the conditional hire with must pass training class. Works great. The first week they are in "my training" and they take a test at the end. IF they pass, they get their full salary and job, if not, all I am out is 1 week and a reduced pay for that week.

Believe it or not, this works and does generally meet the standards. Personally though, I want candidates to prove to me they can do the job. I don't care how many books they have with them or I supply, show me that you can use your brain and figure out solutions to real world situations. That is what I want from an interview.

Nowhere in my statement did I say that one test will work for every dept in the same company. Nor did I say that all IT has the same needs. What I said was that our Company uses a test that will work for our needs. And that the test is changed based upon the needs of each location.

So in your example, what I said was that there would be one test for your Engine Management team, and a different test for the AI team.

I never said that the same test would work for everything, in fact, I stated the opposite.

Sorry if I confused you.

That's exactly what we do.

No matter what skill set a cert or college says they have, (even if they say that have years of "expierence") if they fail the "hiring" test, they don't get an interview.

What I was trying to get across is that [b]IT[/b] is a very big field with very few common points that can be measured as a [b]Whole Industry.[/b] To many the IT person is the one from the Server Room or Help Desk who gets called out to fix a workstation when actually it is a much more diverse field.

Everything from System Board Designers to a cable puller fall into this area of work and all are called [b]IT Workers[/b] though very few of them do a similar sort of job.

So when you really start looking at the mechanics of attempting to issue a Cert for IT what area would you need to cover?

Even today with the current generation of F1 cars the mechanics who actually fit things to the car are virtually [b]IT Pros[/b] or at the very least [b]Electronic Fitters[/b] as it takes them about 10 minutes to bolt on one side of a suspension system and then close to 3 days to calibrate all the electronic sensors involved with he replacement part/s that are built into it.

I actually walked away from F1 when I needed to start developing different engine maps taking into account the G Forces being applied and in which way that where being applied under acceleration or braking was quite OK but when you had to start to take into account Side Loadings things started to get really hard to work with. Now they not only take into account Side Loads but also suspension position at the time Brake Pad/Disk Wear which is all quite acceptable but there are now so many sensors on these cars that it's now a full time job for about 20 people just to monitor the telemetry coming from each car.

Long gone are the days when you had 2 types of IT workers the Support Staff who would come around and fix something and then that bunch of unkept people who where locked away for your protection, they generally had long unkept hair where dirty and looked as if they could do with about 3 years sleep just to look [b]Half Alive[/b] and where known as [b]Programmers[/b] which struck fear into the hearts of any end user when they where told that a [b]Programmer[/b] was going to come around to see what was going wrong.

Then you have the people allowed dangerous implements commonly known as things like screwdrivers which they can either pull the cover of a case to look inside for your lunch that has mysteriously disappeared or maybe stab you with the same item. You never quite knew how a [b]Hardware Mechanic[/b] would react when they found something odd inside a computer.

I don't know about you but some of the things that I've pulled out of what should be a closed sealed case are scary. :^0

Col ]:)

I came up the same way. 30 years ago, I took programming classes for mainframe programming (fortran & cobol). Since then, I have worked in hardware, network admin, Oracle DBA, and 20 different computer languages. During this period I have gone to formal classes when needed. Without the back ground of my experence, I would not have been able to master the other tasks as fully as I have. That being said, I would rate people in the following manner.

My First choice - Someone with lots of on the job training and instructor led training.

My second choice - Some one with lots of on the job training and little or no formal training.

My last choice - Book learning only. It's like a drivers license. You can drive to the store, but I wouldn't trust you in an car race.

Medical, the Law, construction are all professions that require you to learn and use a LOT of book learning and every task is defined and predictable (I will give some slack to surgeons).

Programming is an ART. It requires imagination and analytical thinking. Anyone can learn a computer language but they will never be any good if they don't have the mindset and abilities to be a programmer. Saying that a programmer has to be professionally licensed is like saying that Mozart should be licensed to write music.

on many factors. Yes training is good in many cases, bootcamp training sucks. It depends on the training and training environment. If the training included Lab time, I am sure that a lot more may have been learned (by the eager).
When I was in IT school, there were 7 of us that self taught ourselves and each other. It was almost competitive. We actually went farther than the rest of the class and knew more than the teachers by mid course. At one point the teachers had us run the LAB network and setup our systems as the servers. Then we got inspected for the entire setup.
My main point is that certs are half useless. Its too easy to cheat on most of them. Skills would include training and job exp.

That is not to say that someone with a cert is useless, but I do agree with Beilstwh, the only way to rate a potential employee is to ask the right questions. And dont be scared about a few tricks. I used to ask (when I did interviews) "how do you get to the admin account in Win 98". You wouldnt believe how many people stumbled on this.

Hello Friend,
I am having problem sharing my calender. Or I have no idea how to share calender in outlook2003
could u please five me guidelines as to its step by step configuration?
I would appreciate it.
Thanks in Advance

it's really meant for a learning tool, not a full use distro, and nobody gets through the process without hitting a roadblock.

building the os from scratch like that is a 2 day process minimum, just to get basic cli and core utilities.

I personally make it harder yet, I use the utf-8 version, so that every app is built for unicode / utf-8 character set.
[ only real end problem, use that charset and hit w3c.org, all chinese unless you make it display english ]
getting a bootable cli system is an exercise in problem solving as well as in following instructions.

the printout isn't really required, the lfs book is on the cd. ]:)

but some winders only vunderkid will never figure out how to open it to follow it.

~lmao~

yup.
everyone gets exactly the same test, for tech positions.

I strongly beleive that all IT is a team, and expect everyone to be able to do all tasks to some degree.
[ someone who has never done application development, I wouldn't expect them to be a top team member for such, until they have had a number of different projects complete successfully that they were on. ]

I use the practice of cross train the entire department, so everyone can do any job. No person is indispensible, this promotes that understanding, and guarantees that holidays, staff changes, accidents [ hospitalisation ] or even death don't hurt the company's projects to much.

Any time a Manager begins to feel that a particular employee is indispensible, it's time to dismiss the employee, before they do more damage to company interests.

If training includes any sort of problem solving skills then they are doing a very poor job of teaching.

For the past 30 years most of what I've done has been solving problems that people with stacks of certifications couldn't solve. A few courses in elementary logic should be a requirement (for any profession).

did your mom need to be a physician to diagnose your fever, if you sprain your ankle, do you need a master's degree in podiatry to realize you need RICE?

There's some things where you need a special degree, and others where you don't. Quackery manifests itself usually in the form of people that have a big degree/certificate but no SKILLS.
If your license says you can drive an 18-wheeler, but you're really weak in anything but your personal car, does your extra credential make you a desirable employee with a trucking firm? C'mon, now...

You can use a skills test to check the capability of someone entering IT. Whether it be your IT candidate that was valedictorian or self taught. I knew a valedictorian that spent more time learning OUTSIDE of college, and still had time to attend. It was the work ethic that the individual had, and the challenge to know more, that would make them one of the greats in years to come.

Previous industry examples (which probably haven't changed)....
Java was on the circuit for one year, Want Ads looked for programmers with 5 YEARS experience.
Same holds true for many products. The older entrenched IT staff that has not kept up, fail the skills test in that area. Self taught is without a doubt the only ongoing way to maintain a skills set.

p.s. You can maintain your skill set by enlisting in BETA TEST RELEASES...give that some thought.

He who paddles best does the driving...

If it is the CS MS from Case, he gets the job, if it is the kid who has a nose ring and long hair, who dropped out of high school, he gets the job.

That is why I hand them a distibution set and check on them in an hour...

I don't cae if it is a doctor or a lawyer or a "IT" professional. Take experience everytime.

How do I choose a doctor?
I have had good doctors and really bad doctors. The best referals for doctors have come from nurses. They know the doctor and their ability the best.

How did I choose a divorce lawyer?
I asked my business lawyer and a real estate lawyer who would they have represent them if they needed a divorce like I did. First time I got great representation. The second time I had to go on the certification and got competent but expense representation.

How do I hire IT people.

First I ask other IT people for referals. Within my own company I look for people who have had a great logic/patterns course at some point. Programming/Systems is not about a language but understanding patterns and translating it to the configuration of the day.

A university student would still need to pass the logic/patterns experience. I have had to re-learn from Real Time data capture machines to Mainframes, to Mini-Computers to distributed mini-computers, to PC's to PC LAN networks, to the Internet (TCP/IP, from Assembler to Fortran to Cobol to Basic to DBASE/Foxbase to "C" to "C++" to Java and Javascript along with IBM/DOS, MPE, PRIMOS, NOVELL, Unix, SCO-Unix, C-shell,DECNET, MAESTRO yada yada yada.

The point is in this industry you must be solutions oriented and the solutions are changing everyday. How does a University keep up with that. They can not. All they can do is give you a good well trained mind. It is always up to the indivdual to keep learning and challenging themselves.

In our industry there are always ne

Spuddy_m compared apples to oranges a couple of ways, one of which Ed pointed out. Both doctors and lawyers must have both education and experience. The paper comes first because it proves they have completed the requisite education, and in the doctors' case, residency (experience) as well.

The new lawyer may get hired because he has the paper, but he/she is only going to get the easy cases first so they can prove they can handle increasingly complex cases, until they finally end up working on very important cases -- assuming they have proven their ability to do so (of course we know there are a number of exceptions to that rule).

As for me, I'll take the person with experience any day of the week. I happen to be one who began working in the IT field soon after graduating high school and attended college part-time but dropped out within a year. I proved myself "in the trenches" and was promoted several times in a short period of time and was hired into a management position before I turned 22.

I finally went back to college part-time after 10 years working and eventually ended up with a dual AA in Computer Science and Business Management. Did it make a difference? Not at all. The only thing a degree does is show that you stuck with your education and completed it. A certificate, in my opinion, shows only that you were able to memorize enough of the material to pass the tests.

The real test though, is out in the real world solving real problems under difficult circumstances and under real deadlines. Your certificate won't help you there, but prior experience will.

I don't have any food service experience unless working at the Oktoberfest several years running when I was a kid counts ;-) I can certainly see where that could be helpful as Jaqi and Ed pointed out.

I've been in and around this businees since the mid 70's and even had some courses in Fortran and COBOL prior to that. I've got exactly one sertification, and that is teh A+ one.

I've seen so many people with certs taht did not have an actual clue when it came to the work it is not funny. The ones that can do the work are few and far between.

The problem with such is that you really do not need any real world experience to get a cert. When I took the A+ exam, I had to for my job at the time. Boss wanted everyone to have that piece of paper. Boy, was I glad I read the book prior to taking the exam. The answers they were looking for would not solve the problem in most cases. No wonder these guys don't know anything! I finished both sections fo the test before anyone else had even finished one section and was our of there. The test givers asked my why I was giving up. I told them I was done and the test was pretty stupid.

While I know there are un certified guys oout there who are just as bad as many of the certified guys I've seenm in my book, the cert tells nothing, experience tells all.

coz business is not my list of favrite things to do :-(

want to get into research possibly into
AI or gaming or both ;-)

Means that you will miss some of the most brilliant minds in IT.

If you have a proven success record, you have proven over the length of your career that you are teachable and willing to learn. If you have subject enthusiasm, your CV carries the proof of that- you are actively seeking pertinent classes and staying current. You are building on existing experience and not stagnating.

If you are competent, it shows. If you are incompetent, it shows.

Edited for typo

It was attempting a hypothetical question which once again seems to have gone over some heads.

To enlighten you to my views on flying. Well my father was a Wing Commander during the first Gulf War and I have been a passenger on fighter planes on more than one occasion. Not interested in any mini propeller or light aircraft woman?s machine. So before you brand anybody a fool in the future - THINK ABOUT IT.

Comparing the brave blind guy in the ultralite to a chimp - how low can you possibly get my friend, how low?

May your sight never leave you?.

He had thyroid cancer...

That causes weight issues.

He also takes medication that causes the odors...

He isn't athletic.

So one guy duffs up somthing and suddenly everything is tarred with the same brush. You are no better than a Booch yourself - closed minded to change of any sort.

I've got plenty of time left to make my own way in the IT industry thanks. So far I have done fine...

Bill Steiger. He had a PHD. A PHD is a certification is it not?
In fact it's better than a higher degree - ha!

My ability is not in question. I have been working in IT for 10 years post degree and have done well. I merely want to challenge the status-quo and ask why IT does not have the same accountability and standards as other professions. I'm not saying I am correct but merely challenging the thoughts.

Some people seem to that this the wrong way, but these are the kind of people who I am trying to highlight. Slightly egotistical and self indulgent in what they have achieved without such cert. How is this any different for what you say about me?

Spuddy- you aren't a pilot. Your father was, you have been a passenger. Tjsanko IS a pilot. And of more commplex aircraft than you mention.

My father was an areospace engineer. That doesn't mean that I am qualified to discuss wind-shear. It may mean that I understand what windshear is.

with a link to this discussion on the top with the title "You shouldn't hire self-taught IT workers" and a synopsis of your original post. I have a feeling that TR used a little editorial embellishment to catch people's eyes for this. I did not read that statement in your original post. I have read many of the responses here and it appears that most of the TR members are of the opinion those of us without the certs can be, and in some cases are, more valuable than some of the ones coming in with their pieces of paper.

I don't know if it is your opinion TR was mirroring or if TR made their own statement in the email they just sent but I am tired of the pompous attitude some people take in trying to pump up their own worth by "looking down on the little people".

So, TR if you wrote your own title in that post instead of what Spuddy_m actually said then you are guilty of trying to instigate. If you erronously misrepresented what he originally said then I think you need to make a retraction.

Spuddy_m, if you made the statement, "You shouldn't hire self-taught IT workers" which was in the TR email somewhere else in this Discussion and if you believe that then you are showing how pitifully pompous and irresponsible you are. If you did not then I lay blame squarely on TR.

I think a combination of education and experience is the perfect blend of a prodessional IT position. But it all depends on the job itself. If its an entry level 1 helpdesk then maybe a self-taught individual is the perfect position for them.

But a position like Business Systems Analysis requires not only experience but also a firm understand of the fundementals of the business world that can only be taught in school.

I'm glad you got some paper behind your name and a few years on your belt. This however should still not give you the edge. There is just too little regulation in the IT Industry.

I have interviewed MCSE's, MCT's (even some with experience) for openings in which they couldnt answer questions given to them by NON-Certified techs! To be fair we asked each candidate the same REAL WORLD questions and were totally disappointed. The end result? A man with absolutely NO Certifications whatsoever was able to answer every REAL WORLD question flawlessly.

Dont get on a high horse - the little pony will pass you up...

My sight has deteriated since my younger days. Ye cruel eld has crept upon my body. I thank you for the blessing on my sight.

However I am picking your statements apart again.

He didn't have to be all that brave, he had the real pilot in command who did all the important parts of flying. He can no longer perform the duties of a pilot he is a pup,
"Physically Unable to Perform".

The other person took off, got the vehicle to altitude, trimmed it up, and let the blind guy steer. and yes, he landed the ultralite. I think it was a nice human interest story, but I know that the blind guy knows he isn't a pilot. What he did was have some fun.

The story may be inspirational, but the navigation, separation, throttle control, etc was out of his perview. Even if he could land the vehicle with the instructions, he wasn't the one in control, or responsible for the safety of the plane...

I thank you for the blessing on my sight. May it go from your mouth to God's ears.

... than doctors and lawyers. I mean, c'mon - in the same way as you don't want a surgeon to say, "hmm, I've never tried this before, but I wonder what happens if I plumb the bladder into the brain?" or a lawyer to say "hmm, let's try a novel defense plea ...", you don't want a software developer to say, "Whoa, I never came across this exact architecture before! Better stop now", and so on.

You want a certain amount of creativity and lateral thinking and yes, even risk-taking (so long as it's tested first). Let's face it, AJAX and HTML would never have emerged if somebody hadn't said, "hmmm, I wonder if I can make XML/SGML do this - kind of?"

I am not against certification, but the point must be to get some kind of "joined up training", not just a piece of paper. I thought the Oracle DBA courses was excellent, but bloody expensive.

Rational experimentation is key. I love those job interviews where you get asked hypothetical architecture/software development questions that make you remember how you did it before, or make you think about how you'd do it in future. 80% of the time, you either hear "yeah, we did it that way", or "yeah, we were thinking about doing it that way". The fun ones are when you hit on an idea that they haven't tried yet - then the job is pretty much yours!

I actually got my start 7 yrs. ago as a Jr. System Administrator (read: PC Builder/Desktop Support) using predominantly self-taught skills.

At the time, all I wanted was to get my foot in the door. I had been going to college for Computer Science, but I knew I could already perform the tasks required of a PC technician -- and this was a skill for a full-time job that no college program available to me was teaching back in 1996-1998. Computer Science on the other hand, was teaching me programming languages, and making me work in a UNIX shell without even teaching me anything about UNIX. I wasn't really interested in programming for a living or using UNIX in my teenage years. However, I knew that a PC Support job would pay better than the $7 I was making in food service, and I knew several people with similar techie/admin type jobs sans college degrees. So I started looking for a job like this myself. I was practically laughed out of mom/pop tech shops in the area. But I wanted to move out on my own as quickly as I could with at least some kind of financial security.

I ended up going to a technical school, that basically charged exorbitant amounts of money to encourage everyone to spend even more money on MCSE certs.

Well, I didn't get the MCSE, but I sailed through courses on NT Server, Workstation, TCP/IP, etc. and THAT's how I was able to get a job. Doing what, you ask? Building PC's. Which this school didn't teach me.

And as for the skills that this school had taught me? IP subnetting, network planning/design, NT administration, and the like? I wasn't allowed anywhere near a server unless it was to create a login or deploy a new antivirus pattern file.

Once I managed to land that job, though, I could afford to move out on my own. A few years down the road, I realized I could afford to finish a degree with the company's reimbursement plan, and began taking advantage of that.

But I wasn't given a foothold to do the job associated with my self taught skills, until I had paid someone to teach me skills that my employer wouldn't allow me to use anyway. And then, my job was to do the things that I already knew how to do before taking those networking courses. For me, the whole thing stunk to high heaven like some kind of industry racket.

Sure, I'm getting a degree now, and I think just the fact that I am in the process of taking classes has saved my job more than once, even gotten me promoted. But if I could demonstrate a decent sense of professionalism/work ethic, and proficiency in the tasks that the job requires, why shouldn't I be considered for the job? Especially in the case of an entry level position?

I didn't even bother reading half these posts.
I've made six figures several times and for my current job I was selected out of 400 applicants.

The trouble is you tried to compare two distinctively different arenas and it never works.

To say Doctors are regulated and professional is all well and good but look back at the history of them - it wasn't always so.

As for IT, who determines what is right for a professional level entry? The thing about entry level for doctors and lawyers is that they have set requirements - you can't do that with IT. It moves to fast to allow it any meaning.

I have been self-taught in IT for 22 years now and you couldn't get most of my knowledge in a set requirement - and I've been a memebr of the BSC scheme that is trying to professionalise the industry. I applaud their efforts but they still miss the mark.

I could waffle on - I won't :)

When hiring someone with information system skills, there really is a lot to be said for those of us who HAD to teach themselves back in the late '70s and early '80s; there were no formalized schools at the time and we had to work directly with vendors (hardware and software) to accomplish our various tasks.

Since a college education didn't get Spuddy_m any spelling awards, I'm going to conclude that the rest of his curriculum may have been faulty as well. A good degree should require a modicum of command of the english language, or you're not going to get far with the suits because you can not communicate effectively.

I would put my "self-taught" skills against any one's BS in Computer Science or an MCSE certification any day. I know who the better employee will be.

A professional does not need formal education, only education that is effective and to the point. I did not immerse myself in the COBOL language and have no intention of ever doing so. Yet, I am still an IT professional providing services that are more and more in demand.

The job should go to the best qualified, not the most formally educated.

Aptitude is everything. Kids that have been taking apart hardware and software from the time they are young have an aptitude for IT. They are capable, educatable, and interested. Even if I pay for further education, the self taught are usually a best buy. The biggest problem is keeping them once you've provided higher education.

If you know how to study and pass tests, you can get a degree. It doesn't mean you have the aptitude to do well in IT. The perserverance to complete a degree program is, however, a valuable trait.

Do you know what they call the person who graduates at the bottom of their Med-school class?.......Doctor!

Your comments are indicative of why a Computer Science degree is a waste of time. What a silly title - what a comment? You may have a chip on your shoulder - you should remove it if you want to progress in your IT career! It also goes to show that you don't have to be intelligent to earn a degree, particularly in the US.
The fact is that experience is far more important in IT than a degree, and things move SO fast that education programmes simply can't keep up. I have been in IT for 10 years now, I am a high earner, successful contractor. I am currently working on a long term contract in an important position for one of the biggest and most prestigious IT companies in the world (a US one obviously) and I have a music degree. Shame on me! The title question is a nonsense. For a start - as you progress as a lawyer or doctor your studies at university were always there to build upon, the information didn't change. In IT, as soon as you leave Uni and enter the real world, what you have been taught is out of date, there is no, or little value to it per se - this perhaps is one of the reasons why IT is still consdidered a trade rather than a profession? It is technical! I don't know, but it seems to me the idea of your article is simple nonsense - though provocative!