Fashioning a foundation for the computing profession

Members of a true computing profession must look beyond the problems they are paid to solve, paying heed to how their profession and the world at large affect each other. The body of knowledge and skill that defines the profession to which the IEEE Computer Society's members belong is suggested by the technical articles that appear in the Society's publications. The computing profession is relatively new, still forming, and as yet uncertain of its identity. It is in danger of losing the respect of its wider community, which associates the profession with apparent fiascoes like the Y2K affair, or feared fiascoes like the Internet stock bubble. The future health of the computing profession depends on its members taking an interest in issues outside its body of knowledge and skills. These issues fall into three classes, those that relate to: the profession itself; the constraints that might or should be imposed on the profession by the external community; and the profession's effect on the external community.