"You are told what the ethics of your profession are. Indeed, they are part of terms of participating in that profession, more on which below." -- wrong and somewhat patronizing. There exist professions which do have (recognized) ethics, but those ethics are optional, definitely not part of becoming a professional (because the field is informal and without licenses and too young to have that), and participation in profession has nothing to do with moral awareness or stance.
"They are a set of ethics that is universal to a population of professionals. They are not an opinion an individual has, they are facts –" -- this is an extreme position, said with high conviction that it's the only one.
"Professional ethics are codified, and because they are codified, they can be enforced. Indeed, professional ethics are codified so that they can be enforced." - this person likes to put a lof ot tough words in bold. Again, this is so myopic I don't even know what to say. So many of the ethical consideration in some professions goes way beyond enforcable issues, or even hints of admonition. A psychoterapist especially should know better. This is where i detect an ego-driven agenda.
"People who program for a living trend hard to the libertarian and want not to be subject to the government." - that's a strong political bias right there,and definitely on the militaristic end. You will do what (y)our country tells you or else! That's high ego, and arrogance, at once. And in the next sentence...
"People who program for a living trend hard to the libertarian and want not to be subject to the government. That's fine. But then you can't have professional ethics." - oh my lord, will you stop :) How many more times will this person highlight that THEY KNOW BETTER and the reader DOES NOT and SHOULD BETTER START CHANGING THEIR MIND :)
I am surprised at the narrow view the author of the article takes. They are using one particular meaning for the word professional ethics. In my country it's a much broader term, definitely not law or anything close to it, often not even a standard. It can be informal or formal, it does exist (and is treated seriously) in some unlicensed trades.
For every licensed profession out there, there's got to be 10s or 100s more that are unlicensed. But the unlicensed professions still can have professional ethics, somethings with formal documents, education, etc. What do you think happens on conferences, in the private conversations, in schools and training and in apprenticeship or mentoring? These are very strong carriers of not just skill and knowledge, but also gossip (big part of learning and deciding ethics!) and moral consideration and responsibility . That doesn't mean they are less useful, but it does mean they are not "law" or official or binding in the way the author suggests.
Maybe it's cultural? I'm from central Europe and the author seems to be American, and the words they are using give me a hint of high pride, high ego, arrogance. Feels a bit like militaristic zeal.
Coming back tothe topic, where I worked, some professions do have ethics boards and people are licensed, while in other professions there are informal groups who recommend certain practices and are treated seriously by some (but definitely not all) professionals.
From what I heard from a few experienced lawyers and managment coaches (as an example of polar opposites in terms of being licensed), the only bad actors who are ever punished for their unethical behavior are fools and criminals, and even that is not as frequent as you'd think.
I suspect 95+% of the morality of a person' bad behavior is invisible to any observers (by design), definitely never gets checked in any structured fashion by anyone (boring, thankless work, gets you in trouble, no material gain, low chance of success), and there's almost always a way to behave badly and justify it or have deniability. The real judges are outside observers, and those care mostly about serious criminal behavior, everything else is called "it's business" or some such general explanation.
I honestly have not seen any larger application (enterprise/custom) which allowed real rollback. In practice it's always been "reinstall / restore from backup". I don't see how something as complex as an OS could have that.
"You are told what the ethics of your profession are. Indeed, they are part of terms of participating in that profession, more on which below." -- wrong and somewhat patronizing. There exist professions which do have (recognized) ethics, but those ethics are optional, definitely not part of becoming a professional (because the field is informal and without licenses and too young to have that), and participation in profession has nothing to do with moral awareness or stance.
"They are a set of ethics that is universal to a population of professionals. They are not an opinion an individual has, they are facts –" -- this is an extreme position, said with high conviction that it's the only one.
"Professional ethics are codified, and because they are codified, they can be enforced. Indeed, professional ethics are codified so that they can be enforced." - this person likes to put a lof ot tough words in bold. Again, this is so myopic I don't even know what to say. So many of the ethical consideration in some professions goes way beyond enforcable issues, or even hints of admonition. A psychoterapist especially should know better. This is where i detect an ego-driven agenda.
"People who program for a living trend hard to the libertarian and want not to be subject to the government." - that's a strong political bias right there,and definitely on the militaristic end. You will do what (y)our country tells you or else! That's high ego, and arrogance, at once. And in the next sentence...
"People who program for a living trend hard to the libertarian and want not to be subject to the government. That's fine. But then you can't have professional ethics." - oh my lord, will you stop :) How many more times will this person highlight that THEY KNOW BETTER and the reader DOES NOT and SHOULD BETTER START CHANGING THEIR MIND :)