Ask HN: Why isn't there a professional body for Computer Science?
It&#x27;s an interesting question.<p>There is<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.acm.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.acm.org&#x2F;</a><p>which supports the academic CS establishment but frankly has a &quot;devil may care&quot; attitude about practitioners.  CACM is full of hand-wringing articles about the roller-coastering numbers of CS undergrads and they never once get a clue that the undergrads hear rumours about what happens to people in computing once the flush of youth wears off.  (It&#x27;s a general thing that engineers start out with good pay but hit a glass ceiling rapidly)<p>I used to be a member but I quit because of this.  If I had to point to a particular issue it is that the ACM has unquestioning support of increasing H-1B visas.<p>I am a member of the IEEE Computer Society precisely because they take the opposite side.<p>Personally it is not a litmus test for me,  I see there are two sides of the issue,  but when you look at the ACM they are in lockstep with the industry which sees it as a one-sided issue and anybody who questions it is like one of those brits that likes to brawl at football matches.<p>Anti-professionalism (that is,  active opposition and resistance to professionalism) is the dominant paradigm in IT and it creates &quot;market for lemons&quot; situations that has a number of negative impacts on the field, the worst of which is that once you do get the job (well paid or not) you will almost inevitably be forced into malpractice by management and not have anybody to support you.<p>If there was a simple explanation of the situation it is that computing came along in a time when unions were on the run.  Had computers became widespread 20 or 30 years earlier,  the situation might be very different.