First, I would like to compliment and express broad general agreement with everything James Freeman said in his response to the following message.
Second, I would like to express specific agreement with Adam Turoff's expression of the crux of the problem. Expressing agreement takes much less typing than expressing an opinion. Now, to address Greg's message below... > From: Greg London > Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 11:10 PM > Subject: [Boston.pm] Certification > > I think I just figured out why this conversation is going nowhere. > > The pro-certification folks think that certification would help > convince a non-technical manager to use perl for a project. > The programmers would determine that perl is the right language > for the job on a technical basis. The manager would use a oijia > board and certification to determine that perl is the best language > to use for the job. And everyone would be happy. > > It's a very specific condition. > Programmers determine perl is the best technical language for job. > Manager needs some non-technical convincing. > Certification convinces manager. > Everyone is happy. > > Rather than address this rather specific situation, however, > the anti-certification folks, denounce certification as > communist (red scare anyone?), spread fears of total bifurcation > of the entire Perl community, and warn of the zombie army of > braindead programmers with Perl Certificates taking over the > job market. > > It's Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt at it's finest. > You guys got Bill Gates and his Linux FUD beat hands down. > > How exactly did logic get thrown out the window with this? A. I must point out that logic is irrelevant. Briefly: + People are not logical. + G�del. If logic were the answer _here_, then the answer to a manager consider using Perl would be a logical argument based on the application, not waving a certification in his face. The manager is not logical, and neither is anyone else. The goal is for people and their arguments to be rational, not logical. B. My contention that certifications are socialist is only FUD if you are afraid of socialism, uncertain as to what it is, or in doubt of the same. Your own cry of "red scare" seems to be less of a "logical" argument against my assertion than an attempt to make people think of Joe McCarthy. Perhaps you are not aware that there were communists spies working in the US. You further seem to be conflating Soviet communism with socialism. But this is hardly the place for a history or social sciences lecture. C. You say that the anti-certification people fail to address the specific case you present. This is somewhat of a cheat, as you are only now presenting your specific case, so obviously no one could have addressed it beforehand. But I'll gladly address it. C.1. If you are a programmer who thinks Perl is the right answer, and your manager thinks Perl is the wrong answer, and few or none of your coworkers think you are right, then you are wrong. Why? Because it does not matter what the technical merits of a language are if no one understands the language and can manage the risks associated with that language. If your coworkers don�t know Perl, then you being certified will not help them know Perl. If your manager does not understand the risks associated with picking a given Perl version or set of Perl features to use, then you being certified will not help him know that. C.2. If you are a spiffy junior programmer who knows all about how great Perl is and thinks your coworkers are silly for using Java, C#, C++, and so forth, then you need more experience with things other than Perl. Perl certification will just signal your narrow-mindedness. C.3. If you are an experienced programmer, with coworkers who know Perl quite well, and you are validly correct that Perl would be better than the choice your manager wants to make, and your manager does not care what you say, then you have a social problem with your manager and you should consider employment elsewhere. Perl certification will not prevent you from having poor social skills or working for a jerk. > How'd we get from Perl-Certification-Manager-Accepts-Perl > to the four horsemen of the friggen apocolypse??? It happened in your mind when you built your straw-man. > Just a refresher to those who were busy doing assembly programming > during their logic courses: The person making the assertion is > shouldered with the burden of evidence. Perhaps you were in the wrong class. You seem to be thinking of the debate club. > The only assertion I've made in favor of certification is that > a manager who doesn't use the technical aspects of the languages > to choose which language to use might be persuaded in favor of > perl if perl certification were available. This seems to be true. > It certainly seems safe to say that perl certification won't cause > a manager to NOT choose perl. Therefore certification is at WORST, > no worse than it is now, at best an encouragement for managers to > select perl. This is a logically sound argument. No, it is an absurd argument. At WORST, certification would become a barrier to entry and cost $5000+ to acquire. Companies would decide not to permit anyone without certification to use Perl. Perl would be restricted to business usage by professional programmers only -- no system administrators or other wannabes. All these people banned from using Perl would use Python instead. Python would eat Perl's lunch. Perl would have to sell its Mercedes and dig for scraps in the trash behind the sushi bar. > All I've heard so far is logically equivalent to saying > "Hitler required certification", and then the pro-certification > folks get sucked into discussions of Nazism, when the whole > thing is just a bunch of bullshit/FUD to stand as an obstruction > to certification. Stopping certification at any cost, including > sacrificing logic and an honest approach to the facts. To what > end honestly, I don't know. Perhaps, you think of perl as you > ultimate hacker's dream, unencumbered by the realities of politics, > managerial decisions, and non-technical stuff like certification. > I don't know. Let me be as clear about this as I can: You can go certify anyone you want. I am not an obstruction. I sent one piece of e-mail to a regional mailing list. If you really think that stops you from founding a certifying authority, then I don't know what to say. > But it's clear to me that what happened on this list would happen > on a larger scale if certification were discussed at a national > level. And that made me realize that I just don't have the > energy to deal with that scale of bullshit, that enormous level > of FUD, on the order of possibly tens of thousands of otherwise > logical-thinking programmers suddenly succumbing to the fear > that maybe the Earth isn't flat, maybe the Earth isn't at the > center of the universe, and rather than look through someone's > telescope, would rather fool themselves with smoke and mirrors > that they would on any other occaision recognize instantly as > a pile of stinking manure. > > Just thinking about it makes me tired. > > And so I withdraw, at least until as such a time that someone > actually wants to engage in a logical discussion about certification. > > But I'm done trying to convince the unconvincible. > I'm done trying to apply logic to the illogical. > I'm done trying to move the immovable. > > Anyone who is vehement anything refuses to look through the telescope. I don�t see why you, or anyone, would think convincing anyone is necessary. If I were interested in making a pile of money for doing nothing, I'd get into the business of selling people pieces of paper that say "Someone thinks I know Perl". For yet another fee, I'd print them a new sheet of paper every year, so they could keep their credentials up to date. Just thinking about making all that money makes me tired. -- John Redford _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list [email protected] http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
