[Tutor] languages

[Alan Gauld]

> >fact in the UK the majority of COBOL programmers come through
> >that route. They program up the flowcharts (yes really!) that
> >the designers give them...
> 
> Are you a programmer then, or just a high level compiler? :)
> 
> Sadly, many management people still see programmers like that,

The British Computer Society, the professional body responsible 
for all IT professions in the UK, and the one which awards CEng 
and Eur.Ing qualifications has a similar scale for programmers. 
On their professional development Model (ISM4) programming has 
6 skill levels. A new graduate typically sits at level 3. The 
two levels below are for "craft programmers". To earn Eur Ing 
you need to be at least at level 4. Level 6 is a "world 
recognised expert" - somebody like Guido or Larry Wall or 
Bjarne Stroustrup I guess...

But our head of IT has publicly expressed his strategy to move 
all "lower value" skills (ie coding and support) offshore and retain 
only "high value" skills(design and systems analysis etc) in the UK.
So it's not only pure "management types" who see coding as a 
"no-brainer" skill.

Alan G.
(A high-value type who sneaks some coding when no-one is looking ;-)