Its descendant--now spellt _patent_--is today used precisely to prevent technical progress from spreading.
Comparing those times to the Industrial Revolution that came shortly after is a little unfair - no tradition or souvenir compares well.
When that crumbled, city states took over, and economic life was once again dictated by the whims of rulers who in reality depended on keeping the ruling classes of the cities in their empire happy; in these cities, tradesmen classes operated in rigid, protectionist and mercantilist guild systems. There was stagnation and in many fields enormous regression until the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution (when freedom brought back the drive for progress).
I for one am glad we've moved on.
Now living here in the U.S. I wonder how something like this would maybe translate over to coders and designers in startups. Seeing that we have these startup heavy areas across the country. Why not have people work a year in the Valley, then move a year to NYC, followed by another year in Boston or Austin. Would be a fun and rewarding program for young talent.
Corey Haines http://www.coreyhaines.com/ in particular has done a lot to actually live like the software equivalent of these carpenter journeymen.
But yes, some kind of umbrella organization would be quite neat, some organized internship outside of colleges. A "communist" consultancy…
The stick is called "Wanderstab" or "Stenz".
Does the internet make this less relevant for those in the software field?
In short the goal is to become a "Master" which in the german vocational tradition originally meant having your own shop and not needing to be an employee any longer (so in our case to become a founder).
I think the internet undermines these goals, because, well IMHO it is becoming more and more a gigantic echo chamber (we all read the same blogs/books, admire the same persons, use remarkably similar tools etc.)
I think it is astounding that a lot of very smart people assume that currently hip and promoted best development practices, say for a Web 2.0 whatever platform are relevant for other areas (e.g embedded, big iron, medical, aeronautic, finance) because there is not much evident push back in the blog sphere from practitioners in these spheres... which AFAIK is more a result of these people tending to much less likely to blog or work on open source software, than of the universal applicability of said practices (and if the push back, the results I have seen so far have been highly embarrassing for the hipster crowd).
Not just originally, for some professions you're still not allowed to have your own business without your "Meister" degree. Never understood why this included hairdressers…
Totally agree with your assessment of the web subsection of the IT profession. And it's quite splintered, with the "young turks" against academia against the enterprise, with plenty of small areas of expertise vanishing in the cracks. It does get a bit better if the forum of discussion is sufficiently abstract and spread over different niches (e.g. programming languages that transcend specific fandoms).
Anecdotally speaking: My friend has a "wunderstick", which is a hand made walking stick. When we go into bars in Germany, he taps it, and the bartender gives us free drinks. Before we leave, he taps his stick again, and says some big speech in German (about how grateful he is, etc). Most bars and hotels cater to the journeymen quite well. While we were in Berlin, he also had girls run across the street to him and kiss him on the cheek or lips. I guess it's good luck to kiss a journeyman.
1. Corey Haines: http://programmingtour.blogspot.com/, http://www.coreyhaines.com/, http://www.coderetreat.com/
2. Journeyman Programmer Description: http://teamdoty.us/journeymanwp/?p=4 (from http://www.thejourneymanprogrammer.org/)
3. Software Craftsmanship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_craftsmanship, http://scna.softwarecraftsmanship.org/, http://www.softwarecraftsmanship.org.uk/
After they finish school, the apprentices work three or four days per week at some company and go to a vocational school the rest of the time.
The drawback is that career paths are also more structured than in the US and take a long time. Want to start a painting business? Better get your Meisterbrief first and that will take a good while.
Here in the US things are more fluid, which leads to people changing careers and going back to school at a later age more willingly. The flipside is that almost everyone is an amateur and quality of work varies wildly.
Here's some of their marketing material:
DHBW possesses the unique characteristic of consistently and deliberately combining academic study with applied learning in the professional world. With this strategy, DHBW provides a route to sought-after academic qualifications while enabling students to gain extensive practical experience. This foundation equips DHBW students and graduates to take on challenging tasks early in their professional careers, helping to launch them on successful career paths.
I want to take a van and travel North America working on the startup and talking to our userbase and customers. What could be better from a community management perspective than to get a visit personally from the founders. I think it says a lot more than some silly badge you can display on your profile.
