Re: [xml-dev] Should XML Professionals Be Programmers?

[John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>]

Cox, Bruce scripsit:

> In graduate school (1980) we agreed that a professional is someone who
> will do the right thing based on extensive knowledge of the domain,
> whether or not the customer knows to ask for it.  Today, I’d say
> it this way: A professional is someone trusted to do the right thing
> based on extensive knowledge of the domain, whether or not the customer
> knows enough to ask for it.

I think it's also the case that in a profession you apply knowledge you
got from a book (basically).  In a job, being ditch-digging or being
President of the United States, you apply whatever you already have to
doing what needs to be done.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan@ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan
If he has seen farther than others,
        it is because he is standing on a stack of dwarves.
                --Mike Champion, describing Tim Berners-Lee (adapted)