I'll mostly agree with both. The IBM certification tests I took maybe
10 years ago meant you really had to learn the subject, because you had
to drive to a third party and take a test with no materials. You even
had to lock up your cell phone and there was a camera on you the whole
time. Some of these took me multiple tries, which was a bit
embarrassing. Side note: I didn't take these because I wanted to, it
was a job requirement.
Lately the same IBM certifications are all online. You're given
materials in the form of powerpoints, pdfs, and even videos, and you run
through them and then take the test. You can go find the answers in the
material during the test! So most of the time it's easy to pass first
time. It's like the 10 word spelling quizzes we took each day when I
was in grammar school. I learned all 10 the night before, got all of
them right the next day, and forgot them the day after that.
And yes, I worked with a lot of excellent sysprogs who didn't write ASM
programs. But they certainly knew what they were looking at when they
needed to review one. And they also knew things like an Sx13 abend came
from an OPEN macro, what exactly caused 0C7's, and similar details.
On 2/7/2026 3:58 PM, Doug Fuerst wrote:
Certifications are not worth the paper they get printed on. You don't
need to be an assembler programmer to be a sysprog.
Doug Fuerst
------ Original Message ------
From "Farley, Peter" <[email protected]>
To [email protected]
Date 2/7/2026 18:35:06 PM
Subject Re: Trade Union
+1
Ditto for application programmers IMHO, though the certification tests
would be different.
There was a time In my younger days that I was against trade unions in
general and in particular against "professional" unions, but my views
have changed dramatically since then.
Life is a hard teacher.
Peter
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On
Behalf Of Brian Westerman
Sent: Saturday, February 7, 2026 4:54 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Trade Union?
This is just my 2 cents worth so hopefully no one will be outraged by
my comments, but
why would anyone be excluded from certification? I know electricians
that have been
doing electrical work that I would not trust to change a light bulb.
But the ones that have
been certified tend to be a completely different (and better) class.
I have known, and
still do, many "Systems Programmers" that have over 25 years of
"experience" that don't
have what I would consider basic systems programming skills. In a
gathering of systems
programmers, if you ask how many know assembler well enough to write
an exit, not
many hands will go up. If you ask how many have actually installed
z/OS with z/OSMF
or Serverpac, you would likely get the same result. You might ask if
it is fair to be
excluded just because you don't yet know assembler or have had the
"chance" to install
z/OS but if you want to have a certification, then you have to
establish the minimum
requirements and guarantee that everyone who obtains that
certification meets them.
If you establish a standard that you could create a certification
for, then allowing those
that should easily be able to pass the certification out of even
taking the "test" is silly.
It would cheapen the meaning of being "certified". There should be
requirements to
maintain the certification as well. Just because you learned how to
do something 27
years ago doesn't mean you can do it now, nor that you can do it well
enough to
demand a premium price to be paid to perform that work.
Brian
On Fri, 6 Feb 2026 14:45:19 -0600, Steve Beaver
<[email protected]> wrote:
How many of the US Consultants would be open to creating at trade union
With the specific proviso that everyone with over 25 years' experience
Would be excluded from getting certified but could go get
certifications
Steve Beaver
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