On Friday, February 25, 2005, at 04:00 PM, John Saylor wrote:
hi
( 05.02.25 15:51 -0500 ) James Linden Rose, III:
What Perl is really lacking is a widely recognized, widely accessible
certification program.
hmm ...
i don't think this would help much. besides, it goes against TMTOWTDI
[a
single certification authority].
On Friday, February 25, 2005, at 04:07 PM, Alex Brelsfoard wrote:
I like this idea. I think Perl certification WOULD make the world
happier.
Then again, I like Greg's idea.
Think maybe some of us PerlMongers could get together and actually
start
up a real Perl certification program?
--Alex
Let me tell a story. Me and my former CMU buddy fly to Bombay, start a
company, and working with Indian partners who had zero technical
experience but seemed to know management (i.e., were one of the lucky
few with the money to hire people), leave explicit instructions that we
want to hire Perl programmers to do some web oriented development work.
An ad in the Times of India nets us some 300 applicants that we try to
interview in about 3 days. I can't recall any applicant who lacked a
background in Java because that's what was being taught at the
universities. Looking for Perl was like looking for a needle in the
proverbial haystack - anyone who knew it learned it by happenstance
working for some prior employer or as a personal project. Why?
Because Java had a certification program that the would-be programmer
could wave in an employers face. Perl doesn't, and when you're poor and
desperate to find work you put your effort into proving your
competitive with the next guy instead of intellectual pursuits in the
realm of computer logic. After you land the job you can pursue true
loves and higher art forms - but that would require you to be a rare
and gifted individual who finds motivation in the intellectual pursuit
of Perl instead of the monetary.
Almost everyone who had used Perl and represented themselves as knowing
it, with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 people, sucked. The skills were
barely there.
The few geniuses we were lucky to find were amazing Perl programmers...
gifted, and very full of promise, but our technically challenged
partners were left to manage the enterprise when we returned to the US.
Having no idea, or rather incapable of understanding why we wanted to
hire Perl guys when EVERYONE knew Java, they called up a friend who did
web development in Bombay. Like them, he was not a technically savvy
guy, but like so many who have the money to start a company hired
people who would advise him on technology. Who did he hire? Java
programmers. What did he tell my ungifted partners? Get rid of the
Perl people. EVERYONE is using Java. They fired our most talented and
promising people and proceeded on a course of language mutiny that led
to a complete and total destruction of the project. My handpicked
staff of the super-talented was transformed in my absence into a room
of certified Java programers - with no spark of imagination, and no
drive to produce for the thrill of creating. Productivity vanished
completely and I lost more of my hairline.
The real world is full of dummies who are in charge, almost entirely
because of early life advantages that are mostly unmerited and simply a
matter of happenstance. Dummies, deep down inside, know they are
dummies, and certificates reassure them, and alleviate their fear of
being found out. Certification for Perl will certainly NOT raise the
intellectual bar of its practitioners, but it will certainly make many
more people into converts on both the programmer and the manager side
of the equation. I think that would benefit Perl, but I don't see that
it will benefit the currently standing group of monger gurus. Unless
the mongers were to transform themselves into some kind of
certification organization (which I would love to assist in organizing
if there was enough interest).
Jim
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