Thanks everyone.  I missed the thread on this topic from a few months
ago so apologies for wasting people's time and thanks to those who
chose to re-iterate or reformulate their views.

The good news is that I am set up on github and am mucking around
mainly with sample apps from these tutorials and books so it sounds
like I am lined up reasonably well.  I look forward to doing something
non trivial in the open source community - until I am able to do so I
won't feel very happy about foisting myself on an employer!

Also, I have been to one Sydney RoRo so far and look forward to more
of them - will shoot to give a talk once I have something to talk
about (or really feel like I need to learn something urgently :) ) The
beer there is very friendly indeed!

It may interest you to know that certification costs USD150 (which is
cheap compared to certification in the area that I have been working
in) and can be obtained by successfully passing a test consisting of
50 multiple choice questions.  Not terribly inspiring but perhaps not
a bad start to setting a personal goal for newbies (rather than a "hey
look at me mr employer, I'm so certified!").  I'll measure the mood on
this within the rubylearning.org community and report back at a later
stage.

Thanks again.  Look forward to getting to know this community better.

Navin

twitter: novemberkilo

On Feb 21, 11:01 pm, Dylan Egan <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think for the most part being certified is sort of an old school thing,
> specifically in the Java/Microsoft worlds and in weird networking/sysadmin
> worlds (like seriously? ;)). I even had a person or two ask me for a
> certificate of participation when I ran a couple of Ruby workshops a few
> years ago and I thought it was really odd, but simply because I didn't
> understand their background.
>
> If you're enjoying the online training I'd recommend just continuing with
> that and if you feel that you may learn some more things from the
> certification course then go ahead with that, but think of it as a learning
> process and not something that'll be useful on your resume (I don't think
> I've read a resume with Ruby certification before). Otherwise be on the
> lookout for workshops where you are able to interact with other people and
> learn in a more interactive environment (faster feedback, etc).
>
> And as others have stated, be active in the community (head to meetups, hack
> nights, etc), meet people that you can gain knowledge from and start playing
> with other peoples projects.
>
> Last, but not least, welcome to the community. Beer is your friend.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dylan.

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