Many moons ago, I was active in the International Programmer's Guild (IPG). I became a member in 1984 and was active as a Fellow, Senior and finally Master Programmer until about 1997. In the early years, I chaired various committees and conferences. These included several language conferences (C, Pascal) and the Certification Committee. I was instrumental in drafting the code of ethics and devised the first point system to guide certification of programmers.
Certificates were given in three categories that corresponded to the following rough guidelines (the point system is more specific, but the following was the spirit of the various levels.
Fellow
You are a real programmer, nominated by another member and certified by at least one master and another programmer. This merely means that you work as a bona-fide programmer, have no outstanding issues and we have seen that your work is reasonable.
Senior
This is a big jump. A senior needs a better formal education, must be signed off by three masters, typically knows multiple languages (at least two) and has a complete body of work that can be considered as a 'thesis'. Senior programmers meet a much higher standard of programming than 'fellow' programmers do. Many working programmers were turned down for certification as seniors.
Master
This is basically a 'senior senior' who has extraordinary qualifications such as a doctorate in a relevant discipline, has contributed to the Guild, and has a high stature within the Guild or the community at large. It is largely honorary and it would be possible for a very good senior to best a rusty master at a programming task.
For those who are interested, the master certificates looked different than the other certificates. Here is a copy of my certificate.
