From: James Britt Date: 2005-11-04T00:40:12+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby Certification Daniel Lewis wrote: > On 03/11/05, Peter Hickman wrote: > >>Certification tends to get pushed as a 'good thing' by people selling >>certification or by programmers who don't have the skills. There are >>companies who will certify Perl programmers, which was news to myself >>and many, many Perl programmers. None of whom are certified. > > > I agree. I think the best way to know a language is to have a little > search around on the internet and find a good book... then practice > practice practice. A good programmer should be able to change from one > language to another with very little effort, I think its very possible > to learn a language by looking at some programming cookbook examples. I have a hard time believing that someone experienced with only C and Java, however good they are with them, can really learn Lisp or Haskell by looking at some examples. Syntax, maybe, but, that's relatively superficial. What's common is people who know language X try to pick up language Y, and get just good enough that they can now write language X programs using language Y syntax. (The "I can code in Java in any language" syndrome.) > > However, if someone is very new to programming then Ruby is quite a > nice/easy language to learn, and so beginners may want to learn > programming concepts with Ruby... a course/certification may be good > for them. An advantage to a decent Ruby course might be to get people used to thinking in terms of blocks, dynamic method invocation, open classes, and assorted Ruby concepts that may not have clear (or any) counterparts in other languages already known to the student. Part of learning a new language is unlearning habits acquired while using another language. But certification as such is of even less value than simply calculating one's Ruby number, and far less entertaining. Unless, as suggested, you're in the certification business. James Britt -- http://www.ruby-doc.org - The Ruby Documentation Site http://www.rubyxml.com - News, Articles, and Listings for Ruby & XML http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys