I can go either way on this one.

On one hand, some of the worst programmers I've ever known have University Degrees in Computer Sciences. Just looking around the room I can say that the 5 worst programmers out of 120+ people are all University Grads whereas most of the best came out of 1 year certification programs.

One of the stupidest people I've worked with was a kid fresh out of university who was pushing for the programming to become regulated my the Order of Engineers here in Quebec. The kid would refuse to even talk to anyone who he found out wasn't a university grad, much less accept having his work reviewed by one. (including people with 10+ years experience)

On the other hand I know a guy who's parents paid $20K for him to take a 1 year certification, and who 2 weeks after graduating as a 'Programmer-Analyst' decided that he didn't have enough space on his 'C' drive so he deleted those useless 'C:\windows' files that he didn't need.

Clearly some sort of standards are needed and the Engineering Orders are the logical group to oversee them.

Kevin.

Eppure si muove.