To Certify or Not to Certify
I would hate to live in a world where you had to have three years of
graduate professional training to write a for-loop for pay, or where
scientists and mathematicians were prohibited from writing code (practicing
software) without a license. Or where someone who just wanted to practice
Python had to first master assembly.
I would be interested to hear if you know something about medical/legal
exams, quite aside from there use as legal cudgels, that would contribute to
(carefully) improving voluntary computer training and exams.
I think what I'm after is something not so extreme as this. Obviously
there are numerous folks out there that don't have a boatload of
formal education and are quite competent, while the opposite is also
almost certainly true. Maybe I'm just reacting negatively to the
constant advertisements I hear on the radio for '6 months to your
Microsoft certification' blah blah, and the general trend I see that
says you can ignore the need for 'expensive experts' if you just use
vendor X's solution. The truth I perceive is that IT is an unusual
field where one good employee can accomplish more than any number of
mediocre ones ever will. I'm not sure a lot of businesses grasp this,
they still think that if there's a problem with getting something
done, they just need more people, when in reality they would
accomplish more by removing the less competent ones than adding more
of any kind.
I'm not advocating some kind of licensing for programmers. I just
really wish there was some reasonable gauge that could be used to
evaluate information professionals. There are many people in the
field that are not only incompetent, but they are that way on purpose,
and they use the complexity of the field to deceive whoever they can.
They may or may not be 'certified' and they may or may not have
master's degrees.
I see your points. Again, I think mostly this is just my frustration
in general. My perception of the world lately is that the stupid and
apathetic have really begun to take over. Maybe it was always like
that, or maybe I'm wrong. Or... maybe it's just Monday :).