Jumpstarting the Annual Perl Debate over Certification

chromatic on 2008-01-03T23:41:06

Whatever the merits of certification, it has always been a big hit among those who get to do the certifying.

Though the rationale for certification is always societal good, the real objective is different: siezure of power. Certification is not something we implement for the benefit of the society but for the benefit of the certifiers.

But the real issue here is not certification; the real issue is de-certification. Certain people are going to be kicked out of the fold, not because they are not useful to the needs of the market, but because they don't jump through the certifiers' hoops.

— Tom DeMarco, LETTER TO THE EDITOR On Certification

And?

sigzero on 2008-01-04T02:27:39

Are you for or against it? I don't care really. I would do it just to have a nice piece of paper to hang in my dreary cube.

The links to the last flamefest we had on this :)

brian_d_foy on 2008-01-04T02:59:46

Some links to head off the rest of the discussion:

I've softened in my old age on this. I don't need to worry about it because I know people are all talk and no action. Four years later we see that nobody did anything but talk. It's my favorite life rule for the last couple of years: ignore things you don't like and they mostly go away on their own. :)

Re:The links to the last flamefest we had on this

stephenca on 2008-01-04T09:40:09
As usual, Reg Braithwaite has something pithy to say on this subject.
Re:The links to the last flamefest we had on this

vek on 2008-01-09T02:30:19
Could you fix the Tim Maher link, it currently points to the "Perl is not a toll road" post.

Honestly Brian, how hard is it to do a bit of link checking? You had no way of verifying it?

Ahem. I'm totally kidding ;-)

Re:The links to the last flamefest we had on this

brian_d_foy on 2008-01-09T03:58:42
Getting the right links seems to be one of my biggest problems in posts. Since it's a comment I can't fix it (at least not myself), but the link I meant was TPJ Article on Perl Certification Available for Download by Tim Maher.

Thanks for the correction. :)

Old, but good

btilly on 2008-01-04T08:36:39

Look at the date. It was written a decade ago. (Hence the Y2K reference in the letter.)

Gosh! I agree with chromatic :-)

Adrian on 2008-01-04T18:24:11

Certification - waste of space. See my delicious links on certification for a collection of similar views.

I especially enjoy the Agile Allience position on certification.

Certifications such as Certified Scrum Master and DSDM Foundation are knowledge-based and easy to achieve. We believe the courses that lead to them are good ones. We believe people who attend them get their money’s worth. But while the certifications may be evidence of good faith, useful knowledge, and a desire to learn, they are not in themselves evidence of skill

Re:Gosh! I agree with chromatic :-)

chromatic on 2008-01-04T20:56:16

I didn't express any opinion in the original post, except that I think that Tom DeMarco wrote that letter.

For what it's worth, I could support a certification that identified actual skill, limited its promises to what it could reasonably support, and did not exclude people of the appropriate and corresponding skills.