I agree that certification is a fairly unimpressive thing to have on your resume as someone who would hire a Ruby developer.
However, being that we want to get more people into the community, a community-built certification program might be the right approach. The benefit here isn't increased chances of being hired, but just increasing the number of people actively trying to reach a certain absolute skill level in our profession. If certification provides a milestone for learning developers to work towards then we get good applicants to jobs as a side effect anyway. Bo On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 7:16 PM, Ben Schwarz <[email protected]> wrote: > Good argument Josh, although I'm far less convinced. I'd look sideways > at anyone who bothered with certification. Open source code speaks far > greater volumes - After all, we're all supported by open source > technology. > > Those who patch, extend and collaborate in such an environment are > highly valuable. > That being said, it won't cause any harm either ;) > > > -- > > On Feb 21, 8:11 pm, Josh Price <[email protected]> wrote: >> I think the more balanced answer is that it depends on the context. >> >> Like others, I'm generally quite skeptical of certifications as a rule. In >> your case however, I think a certification may make a lot of sense. >> >> As a newcomer and non-programmer, a certification gives a potential employer >> some minimum understanding of your skillset. This is especially useful if >> you happen to be bootstrapping your Ruby career, without any commercial >> experience. >> >> For a lot of the regulars in the Ruby community and particularly those of us >> with much more experience, any kind of certification is absolutely useless. >> >> As a community, we are in the interesting position where current demand for >> Ruby and Rails skills far exceeds supply. Therefore we need to not dismiss >> the concept of training or certification just because it doesn't suit us in >> our current position. I believe it is potentially useful for those coming >> into our industry and community. >> >> Josh >> >> On 21/02/2010, at 5:39 PM, Navin wrote: >> >> >> >> > Hello, >> >> > As a newcomer to ruby and rails (and as someone working on >> > rejuvenating a career as a programmer) I am trying to establish how >> > the "Ruby Association Certified Ruby Programmer" accreditation (http:// >> >www.ruby-assn.org/en/certification.htm) is regarded by this >> > community. >> >> > I am taking an online course with rubylearning.org (and finding it to >> > be somewhat useful) and following Michael Hartl's excellent Rails >> > Tutorial as he develops it (railstutorial.org) - also working through >> > the canonical textbooks on the subject ... Thought I would try and get >> > some feedback before considering the certification further. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en.
