You do not entertain the possibility that certification could possibly be bad and do damage to the community...
It hasn't hurt Linux.
Now there's an open source project that has had extreme success in moving into the enterprise, while still retaining the hacker community. The two can co-exist.
I'm talking about ghosts because I'm tired of reopening Pandora's box, thankyouverymuch. :-) But since you've asked for it, here are some of the more popular ones:
There's very little down side to trying a certification program (unless you buy Adam's opening argument above). Just some time and perhaps a bit of money. It might even be fairly low effort if someone can convince one of the existing certification organizations that are already dealing in open source-related certifications, such as the companies that provide Linux certifications, to offer a Perl certification.
As others have argued on the list, as programmers we know certifications are pointless as a technical qualification, but we're not the audience that needs to be convinced otherwise.
The point is, if you think certifications are a good idea, then start working on it. There's no need to develop a community consensus. Once it is made available, you'll find out soon enough if there is enough programmer and employee interest to sustain it.
However...
- there is no demonstrable evidence that there is a mass of
programmers ready to use Perl, if only there were a
certification they could get
- there is no demonstrable evidence that there is a pool of
employers that do not use Perl simply because there are no
certified applicants
- there is no demonstrable evidence that simply offering
"certification" will answer the questions hiring managers will
ask
Adam raises some good points here.
My theory is that certifications provide the "icing on the cake" in already healthy industries. The articles that I recall reading about certifications in the IT press say that they result in increased salary (a few grand) for those who have them, but are rarely used as a deciding factor in hiring. (That was probably 5+ years ago when certifications were first rising in popularity. I haven't looked into the topic more recently.)
On the programmer side of things, I don't think too many new programmers are dismissing Perl because a certification isn't available. They're looking at job postings, which tell the whole story from their perspective.
On the employer side, there are a whole bunch of factors, from the reputation Perl has developed, to the quantity (or perceived quantity) of programmers available. If those two factors don't change, certifications aren't going to reverse the trend.
It would be worth studying how certification for Linux has worked as an advocacy tool. My expectation is that you'll find that Linux had already cleared all the other barriers (lots of people and an abundance of glowing IT press), and certification just provided the "warm and fuzzy" comfort for mainstream (with respect to the technology adoption curve) hiring managers.
So I think Adam has it right that certification isn't the answer to Perl's problems, but that's not a sufficient argument against trying certification. After all, "there more than one way to do things." Perhaps certification will turn out to be an unexpectedly useful tool for advocacy.
-Tom
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