I find I can't resist jumping in here. :) Generally speaking, certs are a joke, but also a fact of life. First - the joke part: * I have seen one too many people getting certs by simply studying some guide (sometimes published by the very company issuing the cert) without once even using the technology, let alone using it in a real world setting. * They are also a bit frustrating to people who have years of real world experience in a given area and are then asked to produce a cert. I can totally understand why some might simply refuse to go there. * In my experience, certs are, in fact, relied on by non-technical people trying to produce some kind of due-diligence trail for CYA purposes. Who wants to be managed by people who don't really understand what it is they are managing? I think it is actually pretty analogous to getting a degree. I've known many talented and experienced developers with no degree, and plenty of shiftless morons who have them. Not to mention differences between the quality of degrees. Now, the necessary part: The requirements for various bits of fancy paper is a fact of life. Even well-intentioned technically proficient managers may find they are required for their firm's due diligence process. Thus, our (the Ruby community) goal should IMHO be to identify one or more good certs and support them. When someone comes in asking which cert is the best, that is a great opportunity for us to influence the situation. This is especially true when Matz comes in and suggests there is a cert he supports. Ideally, we would have a single standard cert that one can obtain (if you already have the experience) for minimal costs. Like anything in life, certs are mostly what we make of them. For less experienced developers with a sincere desire to learn and enter the Ruby job market, it is a good way to do both. For those who just want to scam the system, and appear to have knowledge that they don't ... well, those kinds of people will always be there, one way or another. Certs may facilitate their activity, but that's life. Put another way, deceitful practitioners will invent dubious certs if we don't support legitimate ones. I would love to hear more about legit certs that don't cost a ton for those who are already experienced (that is, any fees are merely associated with the training or teaching, not merely the taking of a test). Certification Free, Dan --- ZeraWeb, Inc. http://dev.zeraweb.com/ On Dec 8, 9:33 am, Austin Ziegler <halosta... / gmail.com> wrote: > On 12/8/07, Matt Lawrence <m... / technoronin.com> wrote: > > > On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Austin Ziegler wrote: > > > Programming language certification exams aren't worth anything to > > > anyone who is worth working for. I'll never work for someone who would > > > require or prefer a certification, because it means that they don't > > > actually value contributor input and view people as equally > > > interchangeable. > > As someone who narrowly dodged bankruptcy a few years ago, I can't always > > take the moral high ground. Sometimes just paying the bills is higher > > priority. > > Which is one good reason to avoid certs. They cost a lot of money and > don't pay that cost back in terms of higher pay. Which essentially > means that they aren't worth spit. > > -austin > -- > Austin Ziegler * halosta... / gmail.com *http://www.halostatue.ca/ > * aus... / halostatue.ca *http://www.halostatue.ca/feed/ > * aus... / zieglers.ca