Well since were all being opinionated ill speak along
the same lines as Simon.
I do not believe in tests such as the Allaire Certification,
MCSE, Brainbenc, Multiple guess tests, plain and simple.
A test like this will do very little to gauge anything as
you guys have mentioned but your ability to memorize something.
Whats the point?
Here is my example.
Two people:
Person A.) One fails the CF exam due to test anxiety/little working
knowledge
of ColdFusion
Person B.) Another person passes the CF Exam with flying colors,
studied
just
a little the night before the test.
I think the failure in the exam does NOT mean you cannot accomplish
a particular task without assisstance. Person A with a book in front of him
or
her could work twice as fast as Peron B with just a little visiaul clues
and the manual with them to figure out exact particulars on Syntax or
exactly
how this particular CF tag interacts with a protocol person A is intimately
familiar with.
Does the CF Exam prove that the person gets how everything fits toghether?
>From the Kernel of the operating system on up to the final presentation of
a CF Generated HTML page? I dont think so.
I think you can ask questions that can illustrate very crudely at best
someones problem solving skills (with multiple guess). I think essay style
questions graded by very experienced and knowledgeable programmers (which
would make the cost of the test prohibitive to say the least) is a much
better gauge of a programmer.
Sit someone in a room, give them three hours and all the reference material
to CF they usually use, assign them a particular task, review the code and
overall structure and coherency of their particular method of solving the
problem.
In those three hours you can gauge more about someones programming skill
than any multiple guess test is going to. Again there is still the fact
that some people just perform miserably under pressure like that.. but then
again deadlines happen, a lot more often than they should.
This is a really sore topic of mine. I take tests fine but I just dont see
the point to all this certification malarky. Honestly I cant be to sure
I would want to work somewhere where something as easy to rig as the
the Brainbench test is a factor for deciding if I am hired.
Taking the CF Exam can be a "good" thing if you want to say that your shop
has
"xyz" Certified Developers or whatever, if its free of cost to you.. might
as well. I cant see even in the most highly regarded jobs how certification
can be negative. Not needed, likely. Negative, I dont think so :)
Anyways...
Jeremy Allen
ElliptIQ Inc.
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