From: Gregory Seidman <gsslist+ruby@...>
Date: 2007-12-14T23:00:03+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby certification

On Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 02:20:24PM +0900, Giles Bowkett wrote:
> > > Well in this area at least it is possible to improve yourself, as a Perl
> > > programmer do you have any modules on CPAN that sound useful and are
> > > being used or that you are contributing to. Same goes for all the other
> > > languages. I got a job as a web developer after submitting my Perl code
> > > for genetic algorithms (which incidentally *still* hasn't made it onto
> > > CPAN).
> >
> > Spot on.
> >
> > And I understand that Greg and Michael are more than welcome to have
> > helpers on PDF::Writer ;)
> 
> Plus one. I think it's a lot easier to find work with successful open
> source code than a degree. There's a kind of ceiling to what you can
> achieve without studying computer science, but you can study computer
> science on Wikipedia and beat that ceiling for free.

There's a lot of information on Wikipedia, but information isn't knowledge.
Presentation of information in a curriculum is more than just the body of
information, and (going back to an education being what you make of it) you
can't go to Wikipedia's office hours and ask it a question. At least part
of the reason for paying for an undergraduate education is the face to face
time with experts in their fields.

> I wouldn't knock cramming for exams, though. I got XML certified and
> didn't need to use XPath until a year after the exam. I wrote up a
> pseudocode sketch because I didn't think I remembered the syntax
> exactly, but I *did* remember it exactly - my pseudocode ran
> perfectly, first time, no bugs. I figured I was going to sketch it,
> then turn it into something which worked, but it worked as written.
> The cert itself was a pretty silly waste of money, but the experience
> was very valuable. If you work hard to remember something, you'll
> remember it. Certifications are useless for someone like me but the
> *process* of getting one was very valuable. I guarantee you, if the
> Pragmatic Studio gave an Idiomatic Ruby cert, it would be worth
> getting, whether you ever put it on your resume or not.

...which all reinforces the idea that training can be valuable, even if the
piece of paper and resume line item is useless or worse.

> Giles Bowkett
--Greg