From: James Britt Date: 2005-11-04T13:31:37+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby Certification Ryan Leavengood wrote: > On 11/3/05, Bill Kelly wrote: > >>I'd go as far as saying, based on my limited first hand >>observation, that certificates--despite the hard work of the >>student--may be a scam. (Even if well-intentioned...) > > > Most definitely. I'll go even further and say that many computer > science and engineering degrees are of questionable value (I won't say > a scam, but close.) And I have one! While a graduate certainly knows > more about computer science than the average person off the street, > that still doesn't mean they are totally ready to program in the real > world. Especially because many universities these days have become > like factories, cranking out as many graduates as they can as quickly > as possible. Certification programs are even worse. > I don't regret getting a CS degree; I learned a while lot & had fun, but indeed my real developer education happened out in the Real World, working with people smarter and more experienced than me. > In the end nothing teaches like experience. Of course you can't just > wake up one morning with years of experience under your belt, but you > can certainly do some open source work, much like other people > volunteer to get their foot in the door in their fields. And this is a great time to be learning Ruby. Plenty of opportunity. Write some code, stake a claim, and leave your mark. I've seen a number of people come on this list, all nuby fresh, asking endless questions, and learning lots every day. They start of with some simple, basic, but useful lib or tool they find interesting, and with the help and encouragement of people here they boost their knowledge, keep working on their code, and before to long they've made good, solid contributions. And now they're the ones answering nuby questions. And if you don't feel you have any bright ideas, there are plenty of existing projects looking for help. For example, while Rails seems pretty well covered, Og/Nitro offers a different approach to ORM and Web development, and could use people to help write docs, test out code, submit patches, and add libraries. James -- 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