Agreed. But try as I might, I can't come up with a solution that I'd actually support the implementation of.
If you have any ideas about we can get from where we are to where we should be, I'd be interested in hearing them. Having IEEE license developers at varying levels of skill sounds like a start, and requiring Internet-visible software to be written by developers with certifications sounds nice...until you think about open source projects, which thrive in large part from free effort. And until you think about the fact that software traverses borders fluidly. And what about entrepreneurship? Should we tell people they can't write apps unless they have the certification? Or that they need to pay an expert to audit their apps?
And the fact that big companies will do whatever they can to cut costs, including hiring developers in countries without certification requirements if you don't motivate them otherwise. (Maybe a DMCA-style safe-harbor, where ONLY if they use a development team with sufficient certifications can they be proof against lawsuits for defects; otherwise people can sue them for exploits that result from their software?)
I have lots of ideas, as you can see above. I just don't like any of them. There probably needs to be a constellation of rules in place, set by a professional organization and ensconced as legal requirements... But half of the rules I imagine wanting I also, under other circumstances, would despise.
A nurse needs to have enough 1st Principles knowledge plus specific training to keep from making egregious mistakes. In fact, where X is a profession, an X needs to have enough 1st Principles knowledge plus specific training to keep from making egregious mistakes.
The fact that our "field" keeps producing X without that minimum level means something is broken. It would be like the nursing field producing nurses who didn't know how to spot a Tension Pneumothorax, because most nurses don't have to deal with that 99% of the time.
So yes, I'm arguing for certifications despite the fact that I view certifications as useless. If we had good certifications, maybe we could help establish a better way to distinguish developer skills.
The fact that you entertain this thought is an indication that something is not quite right with our field.