looking for some feedback about Certification

[James Edward Gray II]

However, they were very useful in the sense of
learning the technologies in pretty extensive detail.

Wow, I don't think my Java certification taught me Java at all.
Other people seem to put a lot more weight in my piece of paper than
I do.

James Edward Gray II

 

[James Edward Gray II]

1. Microsoft certifications, Cisco certifications and Red Hat
certifications should be the model. One of these says you are
*competent* to perform certain tasks.

2. If I were hiring a *programmer*, I would look for an applicable
college degree from an accredited institution, not a certificate
based on a pass/fail set of courses.

Wow, it's a good thing I don't hire people. I would make pretty much
opposite choices.

This is the one thing Joel Spolsky and I are in total agreement on.
He says you need two things in an employee:

1. Passion
2. Gets Things Done

James Edward Gray II

 

[James Edward Gray II]

Hiring a programmer without at least a simple coding test is
probably a really bad idea.

Amen!

James Edward Gray II

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Wow, it's a good thing I don't hire people. I would make pretty much
opposite choices.

This is the one thing Joel Spolsky and I are in total agreement on.
He says you need two things in an employee:

1. Passion
2. Gets Things Done

I'll agree on number 2. But passion can mean a lot of things, including
an arrogant attitude.

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Amen!

James Edward Gray II

I disagree. If a programmer has any experience at all, he or she has to
have passed numerous coding tests. Programming is mostly communicating
with *people*, in *human* languages, not with computers. I look for
attitude first.

 

[Giles Bowkett]

Wow, I don't think my Java certification taught me Java at all.
Other people seem to put a lot more weight in my piece of paper than
I do.

actually, I was thinking of the same certification when I wrote that.
I got totally inaccurate information about how hard that test would
be, studied with ridiculous intensity, and then the test was so easy I
could have aced it drunk. the same was true of my other certification.
after two in a row like that, I realized the tests were much less
rewarding than the studying.

if you really want to learn Java in detail, by the way, not that
people on this list frequently express such a wish, but if you do,
read Josh Bloch, e.g., "Java Puzzlers" and "Effective Java." Josh
Bloch is incredibly interesting if you're learning Java in as much
detail as you possibly can, but unintentionally hilarious if you've
been coding Ruby exclusively for six months and haven't touched Java
since you started. (I hate language-bashing, but it's true.)

 

[Stephan Kämper]

With the growing size of the Ruby community (and demand for Ruby
programmers) there will undoubtedly be programs of this sort. Of
course having said that, I personally consider certifications programs
(especially for programming languages) one of the worst hiring metrics
available. If you want to find a good programmer, looking for a
language specific certificate is a terrible mistake.

Well, I second that. And here's why: I always thought that nearly
everywhere in the world (outside the very notable exception of Germany,
and less notable probably a few other countries) you're not evaluated by
certificates, school (and university) reports and paper work like that,
but your actual proficiency and professionalism. As in: "Real World"
work you have done, or at least interviews which aren't superficial but
go down to a real technical level.

I had one single interview like that - and I have to say that this was
the best one I had. Ever. (As it was back in the mediaeval times, and
thus we discussed about the blessings and the dangers of mutiple
inheritance, the C++ STL, and runtime vs. compile-time polymorphism.)

Anyway, I think certificates certify that you're capable of getting the
certificate. While most don't say much about your problem solving
abilities, endurance, patience, abstract thinking and whatever else may
be important in the job at hand.

My 2 (Euro) cents

Stephan

 

[WoodHacker]

It will be a three course
series and will end with a Ruby Certification for the students completing

I would certainly hire any student who can become an expert after three
programming classes.
In my experience it takes closer to three years of actual working to
reach that level (and then
only for a few).

Are you to cover GUI programming as well? And Rails? My goodness
these students will
certainly earn their certificates!

Bill

 

[dblack]

Hi --

I would certainly hire any student who can become an expert after three
programming classes.
In my experience it takes closer to three years of actual working to
reach that level (and then
only for a few).

Are you to cover GUI programming as well? And Rails? My
goodness these students will certainly earn their certificates!

I don't think the idea is to treat three courses as a drop-in
replacement for three years of job experience. It sounds, rather,
like the idea is for people to take three courses, and then to be
given a certificate stating that they have done so. How that plays
out in the context of employment will of course depend on what level
someone's employing at, how the interviews go, and so forth.


David

--
David A. Black | (e-mail address removed)
Author of "Ruby for Rails" [1] | Ruby/Rails training & consultancy [3]
DABlog (DAB's Weblog) [2] | Co-director, Ruby Central, Inc. [4]
[1] http://www.manning.com/black | [3] http://www.rubypowerandlight.com
[2] http://dablog.rubypal.com | [4] http://www.rubycentral.org

 

[David Vallner]

--------------enig2DEB2D2865D30EF8D32A632C
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

=20
The students should be asked to post to RubyTalk indicating they've
just completed the course. Then we can interrogate them, and
eventually come to a consensus of whether or not they pass
=20

Ugh. Just. Ugh. IIRC my optional school Java course and the level of
language knowledge I gained from it correctly, having come to a mailing
list of an equivalent level, I'd simultaneously annoy and depress the
hell out of myself both ways.

In mildly related news, I'm also getting a migraine trying to understand
the above paragraph. There's a Ruby Quiz idea, a natural language
processor that can syntactically untangle my rants ;P

David Vallner


--------------enig2DEB2D2865D30EF8D32A632C
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc"

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFFVc9Hy6MhrS8astoRAuTJAJ4rbLkahqXc/PmjZYOhQ0ZF3CbD9wCdHXU1
MyWCujANt+Q9qx3UqOsO9BE=
=Ubgb
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--------------enig2DEB2D2865D30EF8D32A632C--

 

[David Vallner]

--------------enigD6E36FE69ECD2C79CAE0726E
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

=20
I'm not so sure about that. Computer Science degrees often don't teach=

software development and are sometimes intended to just be a stepping
stone to advanced degrees. And they really don't teach the things that=

are covered in "Ship It!" from the Pragmatic Programmers.
=20
Hiring a programmer without at least a simple coding test is probably a=

really bad idea.
=20

Being able to describe in words some of the technologies namedropped on
the CV at a high level ("What is ActiveRecord, and how would you compare
it to a competing product you know?") would be my pick instead. A
developer should be able to communicate those ideas, whether in words,
or in code, and asking for the former lets you cover more ground.

Knowing about and beleiving in things like source code control,
automated build environments and, most importantly, peer review are
probably the top things I would look for.
=20

s/believing/being able to explain why/

For general concepts like that, being able to explain in more depth than
actual specific technologies, which are more subject to change and trend.=


David Vallner


--------------enigD6E36FE69ECD2C79CAE0726E
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc"

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFFVdJ7y6MhrS8astoRArHXAJ4onSp9aawSfxIzOzjpntjjNZYnsQCffxUc
XF16Rl3Lx/74Lif3wLSWkQ8=
=WzvK
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--------------enigD6E36FE69ECD2C79CAE0726E--

 

[James Edward Gray II]

Anyway, I think certificates certify that you're capable of getting =20=

the certificate. While most don't say much about your problem =20
solving abilities, endurance, patience, abstract thinking and =20
whatever else may be important in the job at hand.

Well said. I agree completely.

James Edward Gray II=

 

[James Britt]

Hi --




When I was AbD I was a Master of Arts

Now a Master of the Black Arts.



--
James Britt

"To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to
assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with
the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[James Britt]

James Britt wrote:

Well, as Pat and I have both pointed out, there's a tremendous
difference between the Cowardly Lion's medal and an RHCE. I know this
from experience; I've flunked the RHCE exam twice now!

I was referring to the Scarecrow wishing for brain, but the Wizard
giving him a piece of paper instead, because that's what impresses
(many) people.

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Well, I second that. And here's why: I always thought that nearly
everywhere in the world (outside the very notable exception of
Germany, and less notable probably a few other countries) you're not
evaluated by certificates, school (and university) reports and paper
work like that, but your actual proficiency and professionalism. As
in: "Real World" work you have done, or at least interviews which
aren't superficial but go down to a real technical level.

Lack of certification in many instances means there will not be an
interview. Some people whine about that fact. I say that if there *is* a
Ruby or Rails certificate, it must be as comprehensive as the Microsoft,
Cisco or Red Hat certifications.

I had one single interview like that - and I have to say that this was
the best one I had. Ever. (As it was back in the mediaeval times, and
thus we discussed about the blessings and the dangers of mutiple
inheritance, the C++ STL, and runtime vs. compile-time polymorphism.)

How did that work out for you and for the employer? What were the
business results?

Anyway, I think certificates certify that you're capable of getting
the certificate. While most don't say much about your problem solving
abilities, endurance, patience, abstract thinking and whatever else
may be important in the job at hand.

For some definition of "most", this could be true. In the case of
Microsoft, Cisco and Red Hat, in my opinion it is emphatically *not*
true -- the certificate is an excellent indicator of the certified
person's abilities to produce consistent business results in the area
covered.

But since we're talking about development (Ruby/Rails) rather than
system administration positions, let's narrow this down to the Microsoft
MCSD exams. I haven't browsed the Microsoft criteria and course list
recently, but I work with people who have these certificates and believe
they have value.

Finally, let's talk about a typical hiring cycle in a medium to large
development project. First of all, when the project begins, most of the
people on it will already be employed in the company and be known
quantities. It's rare that people will need to be hired from outside,
and every effort will be made to limit the number of outside hires required.

But let's assume that the project management has justified the new
hires. There will be a job posting. Let's say it's a Microsoft project,
and let's say they are using Windows Server 2003, SQL Server 2005,
ASP.NET, IIS and C# -- the whole Windows stack, analogous to, say,
Linux/Apache-Mongrel/MySQL-PostgreSQL/Ruby-Rails. I would *insist* that
*every* new hire be certified in the technology that the position would
use. No certificate -- no interview. That would most likely get me at
least five qualified applicants for each position.

Now in the interview process, I want to know what *you* did that you got
*paid* for. I don't want to debate my choice of SQL Server 2005 vs. your
preference for PostgreSQL. I don't want to hear you whine about C# and
having to declare variables. I don't want to hear about all the fun
stuff you did with Linux on your Athlon Thunderbird nights and weekends.
I short, I want to know if you can carry out assignments and deliver
business results.

So by my analogy, were I starting a medium to large Rails project -- to
make things easy, let's assume I'm using Red Hat Enterprise Linux and
Oracle, for which I can hire vendor-certified folks. I'm going to plead
ignorance on the Apache front -- I don't know if there are Apache
certifications. There sure as hell ought to be -- it's a complicated
beast with lots of options. What would I want from a Ruby/Rails
certified new hire?

Same thing as I want for an ASP.NET/C# certified person. I want to know
you can carry out assignments and deliver business results. At a
minimum, I'd want you to have down cold everything in the Pickaxe book,
everything in AWDR, and everything in "Ruby for Rails".