At the OS Conference in 2003, I attended the perl certification seminar. The argument was simple: Perl Certification can remove from the manager the risky chore of evaluating the candidates.
"Oh, he's perl certified, he must be good." Seems to be what they are hoping for, as a "risk mitigation" tool. hmm.
30 years ago, in "Concept of the Corporation", Peter Drucker wrote:
Furthermore, it would seem advisable for every corporation to think over the whole problem of educational prerequisites and to eliminate them where they are nothing more than devices to enable personnel managers to evade their duty of testing the ability of the men under them.
In other words, Enron said "Hey, this guy has an MBA from Harvard, that's good enough for me!"
How's that workin' for ya, there, Enron?
Managers very jobs include risk mitigatation, and they need to do that by thinking, not relying on some one else to do the heavy lifting for them.
Perl Certification is designed to win cultures and people to Perl that, well ... I don't think we want right now. Not until they have an epiphany or two.
Now ... getting them to have the epiphany - that is a worthy challenge.
