This is a good sentiment, and we should have the pride to create quality at all times...
But the appeal of the quote comes from that magic word "professional," and the respect, autonomy, and pay associated with it. Promising that the Respect and Pay Fairy will anoint you a Professional once you become the very best FactoryBeanListenerObject builder in the bowels of Enterprise doesn't tell the whole story.
The word has suffered the same fate C.S. Lewis ascribed to "gentlemen" and "Christian"
"When a word ceases to be a term of description and becomes merely a term of praise, it no longer tells you facts about the object: it only tells you about the speaker’s attitude to that object. (A ‘nice’ meal only means a meal the speaker likes.) A gentleman, once it has been spiritualised and refined out of its old coarse, objective sense, means hardly more than a man whom the speaker likes. As a result, gentleman is now a useless word."
For more on this topic, I highly recommend michaelochurch's November essay on what a true profession of programming might look like.
But the appeal of the quote comes from that magic word "professional," and the respect, autonomy, and pay associated with it. Promising that the Respect and Pay Fairy will anoint you a Professional once you become the very best FactoryBeanListenerObject builder in the bowels of Enterprise doesn't tell the whole story.
The word has suffered the same fate C.S. Lewis ascribed to "gentlemen" and "Christian"
"When a word ceases to be a term of description and becomes merely a term of praise, it no longer tells you facts about the object: it only tells you about the speaker’s attitude to that object. (A ‘nice’ meal only means a meal the speaker likes.) A gentleman, once it has been spiritualised and refined out of its old coarse, objective sense, means hardly more than a man whom the speaker likes. As a result, gentleman is now a useless word."
For more on this topic, I highly recommend michaelochurch's November essay on what a true profession of programming might look like.