From: Xeno Campanoli <xcampanoli@...>
Date: 2007-10-25T06:15:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Certification Test

John Joyce wrote:
> The real reason certifications are weak is because they tend to only
> test encyclopedic knowledge.

There is another reason that is more soft and perhaps much more
important.  Certification is made to encyclopedically register one as a
professional commodity for large profittaking enterprises, most of the
likes of which are better organized as public utilities with extensive
public oversight rather than as private enterprises.  If we had real
free market the drive would be toward a more rich professional community
that knew itself more extensively rather than just registering people as
items in databases and playing lotto with their lives.  Real free market
does work if you don't short-circuit it with corporate oligarchy like we
have in the U.S.  I think the Engineering community could use more small
private concerns, and let the M$ and the Sun Corps become public
utilities with mandatory and well subsidized public oversight.  Of
course that will work better if you get everyone to stop making cars and
start working for only 20/hours a week in their day jobs.

xc

> The test and its backing research is what determines the value of the test.
> Good testing will define what the test can determine.
> A good programming test would simply include analysis, design, and
> bugstomping.
> This is a language test that simply tests your understanding of the
> grammar, usage, and vocabulary of the language.
> Most tests of any topic avoid subjective parts because it is difficult
> to apply metrics to them accurately or meaningfully.
> That's not bad, just incomplete.
> 
> These tests are good in that they check knowledge of the details of a
> subject. They don't test your skill at applying the knowledge.
> 
> I support the idea of certification/testing if it the testing is
> understood for what it is.
> We all know that A+ certs don't mean you are good at troubleshooting
> hardware, because the test doesn't actually physically involve hardware
> or software!
> I've been to good interviews where they created a battery of activities
> using real software and hardware with only you and a clock to figure out
> what's wrong. It was a good test. The only measure of success or failure
> was you versus yourself, the clock and compared with the other
> participants.
> 
> We'll see what the Ruby test turns out to be like. I have high hopes for
> it though. The language designers have integrity and are not doing any
> of this to get rich, just to promote and validate their creation, it's a
> fairly natural step. And if nothing else, the fee money will certainly
> go towards a cause we can all appreciate... Ruby!
> 
> 
> 


-- 
The only sustainable organizing methods focus not on scale,
but on good design of the functional unit,
not on winning battles, but on preservation.