L'informatico, passato e presente della professione del futuro : una prospettiva comparata

The author provides an overview of the origins and development of the profession of computing, one of the socalled new professions. This profile has been dis-regarded until now by historical research, with the exception of some limited stud-ies focusing on single countries and individual aspects of the profession. The author describes the origins of the discipline of computing, making a comparison between some key countries ‒ the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Italy ‒, both in the academic and economic fields. He focuses, then, on its evolution into an autonomous discipline with its own identity, academic education path and professional skills and organizations.

This analysis brings to light the unrelenting process of negotiation aimed at identifying a body of knowledge and securing a "professional jurisdiction" against other contiguous and traditional professions. The market has played a primary role in this field, with the increasing demand of computer professionals both in the public and private sector. Professional organizations, finally, were characterised by two different models: the Anglo-Saxon model, based on self-organization, and the Latin one, based on stronger public interventionism. [Publisher's Text].