> Chris wrote:
> But my point is that certifications
> have literally *no* value or meaning, and a reasonable person cannot
> even argue that they do.
Well, I think I am reasonable and I am arguing that they do. I certainly
may turn out being wrong...I have been wrong before. I believe however, that
reason is highly limited to the amount of factors it takes in. The more
tightly controlled the data going in to reaon with, the less correct the
reasoning is in the large. Perhaps you are seeing perl certification only
relative to technical issues. In that way, you are not looking at enough
data and your conclusios are limited??? This is not an accusation, I just
wonder if it is appropriate and useful for you.
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.
> Chris wrote:
> Im 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.
Okay, now before you throw everything out, let's look at the problem from a
different angle. It seems that what you don't like about certification is
that the general certification model does not necessarily achieve useful
results in the field of software programming.
If I am understanding you, you feel that
1. good people who do not take the certification will not be considered
(which I agree, is bad)
2. lame programmers who are just good at passing test, will be considered
good (which I agree....can be bad)
I do not think this is a criticism with certification, but a criticism of
the typical process of certification. That is not a call for us to
disregard certification, but a challange for us to find a different
certification model that may be more appropriate for software engineering.
Perhaps it is the difference between a multiple choice versus an essay test.
Each achieves very different things...both are usful when used together.
