In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Adams) wrote:
> I guess I'm not too picky about whether value is arbitrary or inherent
> (especially since my philosophy is that all value is ultimately
> arbitrary) as long as there's value there.
You are misunderstanding or misinterpreting what I am talking about.
Yes, the Mona Lisa has arbitrary value; if someone doesn't want to pay
money for it, its value is nil. But my point is that certifications
have literally *no* value or meaning, and a reasonable person cannot
even argue that they do. They do not say you are competent. They do
not say you know anything in particular. All they say is that you took
a test and got a certain percentage correct. They mean nothing at all
to anyone who knows anything about the subject matter.
> >That's just the point: no one is being turned away. Just because we
> >won't offer an incentive of entirely arbitrary value (IEAV), that is
> >"turning people away?" Come now.
> >
> I'd suggest that refusing to take an action which does add value,
> arbitrary or not, says that one should like Perl for its own sake rather
> than what value it can have in ones life.
How could refusing to take an action suggest anything in particular?
> In fact, I'd suggest that
> claiming Perl should be certification-free is itself a form of imposing
> an arbitrary value,
I am not saying Perl should be certification-free. Larry said that. I
am saying certifications of Perl programmers are useless; I said nothing
about certification of Perl, and I did not even say Perl programmers
should be free of certification. I just said it is useless if they are,
and I said that the "Perl community" should not endorse certifications.
> >You miss the point: no certification is in any way valid, by definition.
> >Any business depending on it will be wasting its time.
> >
> I guess I don't understand this. How does, for instance, a PE
> certification damage engineering?
I didn't say certification damages anything. I said it is "invalid."
In any event, see what Adam wrote.
> How does passing the bar exam damage
> law? How does being a member of the appropriate medical society (and the
> certification, including putting those little letters on his nameplate)
> make my prosthodontist less competent?
I didn't say it says anything about competence. That is my point! It
doesn't say you are competent, it doesn't say you are incompetent.
While I will concede professional societies have some value, even those
have extremely limited value. I would never trust myself to a doctor or
lawyer based on his certification by a professional society.
Would I ever consider certification of some technology thingamajig?
Perhaps, but only in those areas where everyone is certified. For
example, I wouldn't look too closely at a Novell engineer who wasn't a
CNE. Why? Because *everyone* who knows Novell is a CNE. And therein
lies the danger. We force people to become certified just because
everyone else is, and people who may not want to be certified, but are
far more qualified than many who are, get marginalized.
It happens. A lot. And it is evil.
> >Therefore, it has no utility to
> >a business. It has a perceived utility, but that perception is flawed.
> >
> I think the flawed perception is yours.
I don't.
> What utility it has is
> statistical.
And the statistics are clear: almost all good perl programmers are
uncertified. *shrug*
> There aren't any absolute guarantees that someone is
> competent
Sure there are! A thorough interviewing and screening process can
absolutely determine this.
> , including the informal, ad-hoc certification (for lack of a
> better word) that goes on in the interview process. It does, however,
> help sort out the obvious losers, and that's a utility.
My contention is that it does no such thing. I have met many obvious
losers who were certified in one technology or another. In fact, the
MAJORITY of people I've met who are certified by Microsoft are pretty
clueless.
> What you're saying is that something flawed is therefore unuseful
I said no such thing. I said something *inherently* flawed is unuseful.
That is, something that says it does something it does not do is
unuseful. Certifications don't do anything they say they do.
Therefore, they are unuseful.
> Well, just to play devil's advocate here, let me argue that you _are_
> practicing a form of elitism by doing just that.
Perhaps a philosophical elitism, but no actual elitism.
> You're advocating a
> form of Perl certification--namely, the ability to learn in the way you
> like to teach--that produces Perl programmers of the sort you like.
No, I am not.
> The
> flip side of this is that you are discouraging the sort of Perl
> programmers you don't like.
No, I am not.
--
Chris Nandor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pudge.net/
Open Source Development Network [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://osdn.com/
