From: Kero <kero@...>
Date: 2005-11-05T08:12:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Certification

>> >>2) Allows you to put those important "keywords" on your resume 
>> >>   which gets you past HR and hence at the very least gets you that 
>> >>first
>> > 
>> > interview.
>> 
>> Interesting.  I prefer to avoid companies that have an HR 
>> department, but not everyone can or wants to do that.
>
> Whether it's the CEO or the Director of IT, someone of influence within that
> organization will be reviewing your resume when it comes down to it.
> Ensuring that you have the keywords inherant in the langugage strengthens
> your reputation. From the perspective of the hiring agent, whoever that may
> be, they likely don't know you deeper than what you put on your resume. So
> whatever you can do to strengthen that trust, and give them a better
> impression, can only benefit your interview, if not their final decicion
> whether or not to hire you.

Sorry, I don't do Rails.

[snip]

> James, not to deflate what seems to be a rather large ego, but not all of us
> are as core in Ruby community as you are clearly announcing. Others need
> stepping stones to ensure that all the bases are covered when it comes to
> programming the language. Having a certification from a reputable issuer,
> ensures that all the fundamentals, and hopefully some of the advanced
> concepts are covered. If you are new to the langauge, as most are, the
> inherant credibility of a certification would ensure that all topics are
> covered and would hopefully give one with the certification an appreciation
> that indeed, they are able to confidently tackle a Ruby project from all
> angles with the best practices in mind, security and otherwise.
>
> If you had never programmed before, where would you start? Likely being self
> taught you would start sifting through google, maybe checkout the ruby
> mailing lists and put together your own amalgamation of what "The Ruby Way"
> is. A school, if credible, would only certify that you know the way.

I got a MSc CS certificate somewhere. It took me 5.5 years to get it,
but it does not mean I can do everything related to Computing Science.

A Ruby certificate that tells that I covered "the basics" would be as
much as saying an algorithm runs in O(n log n) but failing to understand
Why (and hence When) a simple divide and conquer achieves such complexity.

After more than four years of using Ruby, I don't have the slightest idea
what you would require for a certificate. I haven't used half of the
stdlib, so i'd probably fail the test.

In a sense, self.to_i (thanks, Hal) is already better than a
certificate. But then, Hal is supposedly one of the few ppl that knows
"The Ruby Way" in all details, too.

+--- Kero ------------------------- kero@chello@nl ---+
|  all the meaningless and empty words I spoke        |
|                       Promises -- The Cranberries   |
+--- M38c --- http://members.chello.nl/k.vangelder ---+