Over the past 10 years or so, I have travelled extensively in Europe teaching engineers. This has given me plenty of opportunities to think about the state of IT and how budding engineers should be trained.

Time and again on my teaching trips I have encountered a flawed industrial practice that was first described by the estimable Fred Brooks in his Mythical Man Month more than 30 years ago, namely the promotion of engineers to management just as they become reasonably competent at engineering.

Given that management has always paid better than engineering, it’s hardly surprising that many engineers should want to make a switch if given the opportunity. This state of affairs is unfortunate, given that there is one thing that is absolutely essential for building good IT systems and that is individual
engineering excellence. The recent proliferation of certification programmes is all very well, but these schemes are no substitute for real-world experience. One of the main reasons why Linux is so good is that there is a vast wealth of engineering experience behind it.

With IT systems becoming more complex and failures more expensive, the need for engineering excellence shows no sign of abating. Promising engineers need to be encouraged to stay the course. Pay structures should be revamped to make engineering a more attractive career and stem the flow of talented technologists into management.

However, throwing money at the problem in the form of decent salaries is not the whole answer. If the UK is to prosper in future, more young people need to be drawn to the IT sector. One way to do this would be to revive the idea of IT apprenticeships. Because IT has evolved as a kind of fashion industry rather than an engineering discipline, not enough emphasis has been placed on practical, hands-on training.

It is very difficult to learn how to build successful systems by reading books or doing degrees in computing. You have to get out there and work with somebody who knows how to do it and learn from them. Throughout history, apprenticeships have been a very successful way of imparting that essential blend of empirical and theoretical knowledge that marks out the best exponents of any field of activity. Sometimes, apprentices surpass their masters. There is a wonderful example of this in Verrocchio’s 1475 painting Baptism of Christ, which is in the Uffizi in Florence.

He got his apprentices to paint the two angels kneeling at the feet of Jesus. I’ve seen this painting several times and the angels stand out like searchlights across the room. It is said that Verrochio looked at them and never painted again. The apprentices’ names: Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli. We could do with a few apprentices like this in IT.