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(jcwren) Re: Re: Certification Foo

by jcwren (Prior)
on Jan 25, 2002 at 20:29 UTC ( [id://141531]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re: Certification Foo
in thread Certification Foo

While I agree in principle, Randal, the problem is that BrainBench is already offering Perl certs. And there are classes of employers that just *love* BrainBench type certs.

What Larry thinks will have little to do with what people wanting to hire someone who is known (by whatever metric, flawed or otherwise) to have certain qualifications.

--Chris

e-mail jcwren

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: (jcwren) Re: Re: Certification Foo
by merlyn (Sage) on Jan 25, 2002 at 20:33 UTC
    Ewww. BrainBench. Which have been shown by Perl Experts to have lousy tests. If an employer wants to trust a bogus organization, they get what they deserve.

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

      About a year ago, I did the Brainbench Perl certification test. A year ago, I didn't know OO, almost never used references and never used strict or -w. I didn't even know that local didn't declare. But I passed the certification. At master level.

      (Please note that a LOT has changed in the past year - in that year, I read most of the documentation in the distribution, read a lot on regexes and skimmed over some ORA books I borrowed. (I bought MRE, though - couldn't find anyone that had it). I think my own code is quite good, but then again, I have always thought that ;))

      2;0 juerd@ouranos:~$ perl -e'undef christmas' Segmentation fault 2;139 juerd@ouranos:~$

(ichimunki) re x 4: Certification Foo
by ichimunki (Priest) on Jan 25, 2002 at 23:33 UTC
    I have a BrainBench certification in Perl hanging on my wall in my cube. I took the test because it was free. I hung it up because I went to the trouble of taking the test, getting a certificate, and out of the four or five certs I got from them, it was the only one that wasn't embarrassing. Mostly I keep it around because it looks semi-official and gives me a chuckle once in a while.

    It's certainly politically safer in the workplace than a certificate saying I'm Minister of the Universal Life church (which I don't think I am at this point, just an example). But I would never list BrainBench certification on my resume... I'd be a lot more likely to mention "active participation in the perlmonks.org online community" than a BB certification. Now if a prospective employer wanted me to pass one of their tests and was willing to pay the fee...
Re: (jcwren) Re: Re: Certification Foo
by perrin (Chancellor) on Jan 25, 2002 at 21:00 UTC
    And there are classes of employers that just *love* BrainBench type certs.

    Really? I've never met anyone except other Perl developers who have even heard of BrainBench. Did an employer actually ask you about this, or did you present them with a certification from BrainBench?

Re: (jcwren) Re: Re: Certification Foo
by manuka (Initiate) on Mar 03, 2002 at 18:07 UTC

    I once got a bunch of brainbench certs just to put them on my resume to troll employers - If any of them put any stock whatsoever in them, I ran fast and hard in the opposite direction - I was actually able to extract some usefulness from them. One potential employer saw it, and said "You know brainbench certs are bogus, right?"... I replied back, congratulating him for passing the test.

    I'll be the first to tell you certifications in general are pretty bogus, as they don't mean squat about your real-world abilities, just your ability to Memorize TFM and syntax (something I'm horrible at). On the other hand, corporations are enamoured with getting their people certified on $foo and willing to throw large values of $money around to do so. Parting corporate fools and their money seems like a good idea to me.

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