Programmers confess unethical, illegal tasks asked of them
I believe the future of this industry lies with us building it into a capital-P profession and all that it entails.<p>I don&#x27;t buy the O&#x27;Hanian view that we should continue innovating, &quot;without their permission.&quot; I don&#x27;t think software necessarily has to come with the risk of killing people in order for it to cause significant harm. We&#x27;ve seen how innocuous software can cause significant harm to civil liberties and put under-represented people at risk. We&#x27;ve seen how software vulnerabilities put the financial industry and peoples&#x27; future at risk. At best we inconvenience a user. At worst... well we don&#x27;t have to imagine that. I think it&#x27;s enough that we take some responsibility for what we create into our own hands.<p>We&#x27;re going to be bad at regulating our industry at first. It may harm startups for a while. However I think it&#x27;s important for professional software developers to be licensed, projects insured, and liability enforced. How will self-taught developers fit into the system? I don&#x27;t know... I&#x27;m self taught myself. However I am looking towards going back to school and seeing what I need to do to be licensed... there is a government-backed program where I live.<p>I just hope that when the time comes and I stick to my guns that there will be an organization behind me with the power to litigate for my job. Too many times I&#x27;ve been asked to put my professional opinion aside... as it&#x27;s just an opinion after all... in the name of business&#x2F;progress&#x2F;innovation. I&#x27;d rather be beholden to the profession than to my employer (and I think many employers are smart enough to realize the benefits of this arrangement).