Steve Jones - Editor (2/6/2009)

---

Wow, quiet a debate going on!

Brad, thanks for the break and a nice job on the editorial.

We all need to get "reset" at times, to have ourselves grounded back in our reality. It happens again and again in many situations that we spiral our thoughts and emotions about some situation. As an example, the unlicensed server. You might do one for Dev, which is allowed, it might get moved temporarily to prod, which happens, you hem and haw, "bend the line", it's only natural over time that you miht stray further than you want.

However if you had a grounded set of ethics, maybe something that was online with AITP, or even IEEE, that we published once a year to re-ground you back with something you agree, that might help some of us be sure we're acting as we want.

A code of ethics doesn't indicate failure. It provides a structured outline of how to deal with some of the "it depends" situations. I think most people have the basic "do not lie, do not steal" morals, but there are plenty of gray areas that you might not be sure about. We have obligations not just to the company, but to the people whose data we hold.

We can't force unethical people to follow a code, as Jeff Moden mentioned, but it's not for them. We can report them when we see it, and perhaps have some level of follow through. A code hosted by someone like AITP would also need a place where people can ask questions of their situation and get guidance on how far to press things.

Above all, we can agree that we do follow a code. If we police ourselves, at some point it will become fashionable to hire someone that adheres to the code. Maybe not for 20 years, but it will be a marketable item like "green" is today.