vviewpoints

DOI: 10.1145/1378704.1378711
The Profession of IT
Voices of Computing

The choir of engineers, mathematicians, and scientists who make up the bulk of our field better represents computing than the solo voice of the programmer.

ALTHOUGH ENROLLMENTS IN computing degree programs appear to have bottomed out at approximately half of their 2001 level, there is no reassuring upward trend. The industry need for computing professionals will continue to exceed the pipeline by at least one-third for some time to come. Why do low enrollment rates persist in such a good market?

Several key factors influencing low enrollment rates are connected to the myth “CS=programming”—tales of dwindling employment opportunities, negative images of computing work, and inflexible curricula. ^{2, 3} Reversing this myth can result in considerable progress.

Thirty-five years ago, Edsger Dijkstra reacted to his generation’s version of this myth by declaring himself proud to be a programmer. ⁵ Many followed his lead. ACM has been proud: half the A.M. Turing Award winners are in programming, algorithms, and complexity. ³ But our internal self-confidence did not dispel the external myth.

Twenty years ago, the ACM and IEEE warned that the myth could become damaging. ⁴ Today, the word

“programming” itself generates misunderstandings. Internally, it is broad: design, development, testing, debugging, documentation, maintenance of software, analysis, and complexity of algorithms. Externally, it is narrow: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics defines “programmer” to mean “coder.” Often without realizing it, insiders and outsiders interpret the same words with entirely different meanings. When insiders broadened to object-oriented programming, outsiders thought we narrowed to the Java language.

Ten years ago, we tried another tack. We broadened our view of computing to include information technology (IT), ¹ and we defined what it means to be fluent in IT. ^{7, 8} These works were embraced in high schools and helped generate enrollments in IT but not CS. They have not dispelled the myth.

Today, Clay Shirky notes a trend that may help explain the durability of the myth. ⁶ The general public is now confronted with an amazing array of powerful tools for the common computational tasks. Many believe they can accomplish what they need as amateurs. Only a few professionals are needed to program all these tools for the many. There is no spe-

cial attraction to being a professional.

How can we communicate the richness of our field and dispel the myth? What if we learn to speak in the voices of the many kinds of computing professionals? The programmer is a solo voice. The whole, loud choir could dispel the perception that the bulk of computing is about programming. The choir might also help make professionalism more attractive by showing our many critical specialties that cannot be done by amateurs.

To speak in a professional’s voice, I immersed myself in the professional’s practice. I spoke of war stories, experiences, ambitions, fears, and everyday things. I sang the joys (and sorrows) of being a professional.

Education philosophers such as John Dewey maintained there are two ways of learning, which can be called “learning-about” and “learning-to-be.” Learning-about means to acquire a description; learning-to-be means to acquire the practice. Learning about carpentry, music, or programming is not the same as being a carpenter, a musician, or a programmer. Programming seems to blur this distinction because programmers build descriptions of al-