From: Chad Perrin Date: 2007-12-11T15:59:32+09:00 Subject: Re: ruby certification On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 02:09:37PM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote: > On 12/10/07, Jim Clark wrote: > > > My issue is not with training; my issue is with training that "leads" > > > to a certificate. > > > I don't have a problem with the certificate designation because I > > understand that it means that a person *should* have certain fundamental > > knowledge just like a Computer Science degree should indicate the person > > has basic programming skills. Having a degree or certificate in no way > > guarantees that the person is a good programmer and there are numerous > > examples where the best programmers had neither. > > Ultimately, the problem is one of wishes and horses. It may differ in > the rest of the world, but certificates in the U.S. and Canada are > essentially worthless, and it's greedy vendors' fault in large part. > Sorry. I tend to agree, to some extent at least. I'm surprised, though, that you didn't address the matter of how a CS degree is characterized here. Computer Science degrees are not supposed to indicate a basic ability to program -- computer science as a field is something else entirely. It is as though everyone expects a CS degree to be the definitive programming certification. Of course, because that's how it is treated in the job market, schools have started chasing that in how they structure their CS degree programs, with the end result that they end up being about as worthless as vendor-driven certifications. Oh, sure, they make you *look* good, but they don't make you *actually* good, at least judging by the results I've seen. It seems most CS degree programs are just (really long, really expensive) Java certification courses, these days. > > Still, it reinforces my point: your certificate is going to have value > because of who is mentoring you during the process. NOT because it's a > piece of paper. I'd still feel more comfortable hiring someone with a > visible reputation of open source contributions. It's not the piece of > paper (the certification) that has value; it's the process. If that > process changes, the value evaporates. Spot-on, I think, with the exception that it's not reputation that makes the mentor -- though certain types of reputation are strong indicators. > > > Paper certs show nothing except someone crammed for an exam and passed. > > Yet this is *exactly* what the OP was asking for: is there a cert > available for Ruby. Most people aren't interested in taking 6?9 months > to get a piece of paper (sadly). Even with your cert, it doesn't > *mean* _anything_real_ until it's clear that you were learning from > one of the preeminent voices about Ruby. > > Certs, by and large, are scams. That's not to say that there aren't > good processes and programs, but those speak to the quality of the > programs, not the pieces of paper you get from them. It's important to separate the certification from the instruction. A certification is only as useful to the person pursuing it as it is useful for getting a job -- and it is only useful to employers who know better than to care about a certification (in that they have a competitive advantage over those employers who take a certification as some kind of magical indicator of ability). Certifications are also, oddly enough, useful to instructors in that it provides them with a built-in marketing tool: if they advertise their programs as certification training programs, they're more likely to get students clamoring at their doors, assuming the certs in question are in any demand. Look past the presence (or absence) of any association with certifications, and choose your instructional programs with care, if you actually want to learn. If you already know the material, you don't need a program -- just brush up on the "official" answers, and go take the cert, if that's important to career progression. Sadly, degrees are much the same -- but there's probably less than one hundredth of one percent of employers out there that realize this. I learned a lot in college -- but mostly in two specific ways: 1. pursuing knowledge on my own time 2. sticking with a good instructor for future classes, even if they're outside my chosen degree program The end result is that I didn't learn all that much from the classes I needed for the degrees I pursued, even when I was getting As on everything. Learning is something you do, not something you receive. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] Ben Franklin: "As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously."