@anonymous

No, your Phd in CS will just have to do another 4 week course, this time the PI course. That isn't the problem in this case. (Although it is a big problem if he wants to lead the internal design and programming of an accounting system, since that means 5 years of night courses.)

The problem is that our field, its practices and standards, are being set by outsiders. That is the hallmark of a trade.

If we want to be a profession, we must seek to be mostly self-regulating.

You can't have anarchy in a commercial or academic environment, something always comes along to organize things.

People's lives, people's savings, people's reputations, depend, in this case, on testimony in court. Courts don't want amateurs involved.

If IT people insist on being amateurs, we will be excluded from the organizing process.