On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 03:47:32PM -0700, Bryan J. Smith wrote: > Then why are you here?
Hopefully to help make the test relevant. Possibly I am optimistic that some day there will be a useful certification. > If you want to go that route, does public certification and > licensing mean anything? Or, I'll re-phrase, do the exams > mean anything either? I have seen certified electricians do a shit job. I have seen uncertified people do a lovely job. > In the state of Florida, I am a Certified Engineering Intern > (EI). That means I passed the Fundamental of Engineering > (FE) exam, formerly known as the Engineer-In-Training (EIT). > Do you think the FE exam is a good test of my education? > And what would you say if I told you I was tested on fluid > mechanics, thermodynamics and various other system interactions > and transfers? A "smartie-pants?" or "what the f-?" for an > electrical engineering graduate? Some profesional associations have strange requirements, which sometimes seem intent on keeping people out. > I've been lazy, so I haven't put through the paperwork to > take the Practices/Principles of Engineering, to become a > Professional Engineer (PE). Part of the reason why is that > I'm still hopeful they'll have a more Software Engineering > -centric examination. It's a long, drawn out, multi-decade > battle between the more traditional engineering disciplines > and newer fields -- not unlike how Civil Engineers prevented > Environmental Engineering from being recognized in the '70s > (but doing so immensely improved environmental actions in the > US, "behind the scenes" instead of ignorant politicians and > whistle blowers "after-the-fact"). I know quite a few people that do engineering related work but just can't be bothered to do the paper work and exams requried to become a profesional engineer. A few have even been profesional engineers and dropped out and stopped paying the fees to the association because they saw no benefit at all to being a member. > With that all said, do you think the PE exam is any different? Having not written one, I can't be sure. Certainly passing the test is only proof that you could pass the test, not that you are actually going to be a competent engineer (I have met a couple with no clue of how reality works, but who tested extremely well on engineering exams). > And that's before you consider the reality ... > > Does having an electrical engineering degree help me > do my job at all? Perhaps if your job is licensed electrician it could. If you are in IT, then probably not. > Oh, sometimes people get all "oh, it's a computer degree, good" > because my Electrical Engineering option was "Computer." But > just because I had my 2nd semester in analysis (all that stupid, > higher math for automated, engineering applications), architecture > (you know, gate-level system design), semiconductor (you know, > intrinsic material, junctions, layout, etc...), etc..., does > that really apply to IT at all? Because knowing nand, nor, not, or, and, 555s, flip-flops, etc is so hugely required in IT work. :) > Again, do any exams? I guess it depends. To some extent assignments are probably a better indication of what you are capable of doing, but then you get into the whole cheating potential and such, which exams have an easier time preventing. > Does the FE/PE test the ability of certified/licensed > engineers to serve the public trust, to be held criminally > negligent for any actions that go against such? Does it > test them on how to write statues, to protect the public? > Does it teach them how to get their employers to understand > that they answer to the public more than their paycheck, > under the threat of criminal prosecution? > > So, I ask again, why are you here? Well I am not here to be a yes-man. I want to see LPIC have better more realistic questions I suppose. I barely passed LPIC 101 the one time I wrote it. That offended me highly. For example there were questions about sendmail. I have used sendmail and administrated it. What I know about sendmail as a result is that you simply shouldn't ever use it. Use postfix or exim or something else that works and doesn't involve the insanity of m4 to configure it and hasn't had a long history of security disasters by design. Why would I care how to do anything with sendmail based on that? I sure won't put effort into remembering how to do stuff with sendmail. So there goes a few marks. Hence I think there can be better questions. So to me a good linux admin is one that doesn't know how to configure sendmail to do something because they know better than to use sendmail. > You have a problem with the exams, yes. But what about the > larger aspect of what some certification programs are trying > to accomplish with exams, even if it's a very incomplete > aspect of the larger evaluation of a professional? If I could have my way, I would rather recruiters weren't "lazy" and didn't rely on certifications and diplomas to identify who was the "best" candidate for a job. But unfortunately often they know little to nothing about the task they are hiring for, and have to go by "measureable" values that they believe they can understand. I am not sure that problem can be solved. So perhaps making the tests better and more fair is the only solution there is. So I try to provide my input on that, and LPIC certainly seems the most open of the certifications that way. I tend to do quite well on tests that I know the material for, but I also hate memorizing useless stuff, which some tests tend to test for. > How about computing grids at banks? Yes, Wall Street may > have tanked, but even some of my former colleagues at Lehman > Brothers have caught on at Barclay's. Why? Lehman's existing > data center of 15,000 RHEL servers was valued in the billions. > It's still quite useful for various banking. > > Red Hat's MRG efforts, based on Morgan Stanley (among other) > developments, is another example. Does Red Hat's RHCDS really > prepare people for MRG deployment in huge, multi-thousand > server grid environments? I don't know. Does it? Is it a training course or just a test? > But why use "ls -r" when "find" is better/safer for many things? > Why use "cp -dpR" when piped tar or dump is better/safer? Because ls is simple and quick, and find's syntax is awful (very useful tool though but it required reading the man page a few times to figure out what it does, and even then a test run or two can be necesary for more complex things). > And what about inode concepts? Superblock? > Ever teach these concepts, let alone test them completely? I know what they are. I am trying to think if I would expect an admin to need to know that or not. I suppose you could ask "What is an inode" and let them write their own answer, but that becomes much harder to mark than multiple choice and requires much more knowledge and objective standards to do. > HINT: You can't, and that's 1, small aspect. ;) You are probably right, at least not with multiple choice. -- Len Sorensen _______________________________________________ lpi-examdev mailing list lpi-examdev@lpi.org http://list.lpi.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev
