On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:55:58 -0600 (CST), Alex Brelsfoard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > My impression is that the language which is making the most > > inroads on traditional Perl areas is PHP. Is that because of the > > wonderful certifications that PHP has which Perl doesn't? Or is > > it because PHP is seen as easier to get started with than Perl? > > Also PHP has the huge advantage that hosting environments > > allow it to be used in a shared hosting environment, while > > mod_perl requires dedicated servers. (That is because PHP is > > less capable, so it is hard for one site to cause problems for > > other sites running in the same Apache process.) > > Are you telling me that this DOESN'T keep you up at nights? I know I'm > exaggerating, but this is partly what gets me riled up: that simply > because something is easier to get started with it's better. Hell the PHP > documentation itself explains why it's easier to get started with: it > gives su-root permissions on install. So you don't need to configure > anything. Just sit down and play; no worries about not being able to do > anything, because you basically have root. I'm sorry, but I'm not willing > to take on that huge a security hole just to make the setup process > easier. To me this just gives me more reason to fight harder to tell > managers that Perl is the way to go.
If everything that depressed me kept me up at nights, I'd never get any sleep. It sounds to me like you should read the classic essay, "Worse is Better": http://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html No matter how much I may wish it otherwise, the world will be as it is regardless of what I can do. So I'll try to educate my corner and then survive as best I can. > > Suppose that we try this and it doesn't work. Does the argument > > then become that we need to get our certification backed by > > someone prominent because a certification that nobody has > > heard of is proving to be useless? > > We're just trying to find ways to communicate to managers that know > nothing about Perl. This is just one idea. And I think well worht > TRYING. If certification had no potential downsides, then I'd cheer you. But it has potential downsides that concern me, so I won't. Fortunately, unlike worse is better, what I'd like to have happen will happen naturally without any effort on my part. > > Also I have a different theory. My theory is that the non-savvy > > manager is going to ask someone he trusts for an opinion, who > > is either going to be someone whose competence has been > > proven (less likely), or is going to be someone else of about > > the same position and abilities (more likely). In neither case > > does the existence of a certification enter into the process. > > Well if he is "about the same position and abilities" then the > certification program will be advertising to him/her as well. Here are some questions to ask yourself about this. - How much money do you wish to spend on advertising? - Where do you expect that money to come from? - Would that be a cost-effective use of that money? - Will the people whose money you're expecting to use agree? > > So now I need to take an endless stream of training from an > > approved source? > > Well, as was explained before. Certification is only PART of the hiring > process. If you get one certificate and then spend years working with > perl you obviously don't need another certificate. Your experience will > trump your certificate at that point. I'm trying to see how this certificate does more than being able to put on your resume, "I've taken these courses from trainer X." I've seen people say that on their resumes, and I paid attention. I did not necessarily recommend the hire, but you don't need a recognizable certificate to realize value from training. > > And remember to give the "correct" answer > > on a test even when I think it is wrong? (Quick: is "our" a good > > thing? Read http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=48379 > > before answering. Yet as cool feature of the day I'm sure that a > > certification would have required me to talk up how great it was.) > > Well, chalk that up to the proper design of the certification program. At > this point we're past deciding whether or not to DO the certification. > We're at the point of deciding how best to do the certification. If you're going to dream of a certification, why not dream of a perfectly adminstered one? My point is that existing certifications are notorious for having specific shortcomings. Unless you give me a good reason to believe that this would be different, I'm going to believe that your certification would be as bad as the rest. > > A certification that has very prominent and vocal opponents > > within the community is likely to have an uphill battle to > > acceptance. A certification that didn't have enough support > > for people to learn what they need to pass it is going to find > > that the hill is looking more like a cliff. > > I thought we were discussing this because we were already looking up said > hill. And my understanding of a certification program includes the > educational system required for people to pass the exam. Like most Java > certification programs these days: you go for 5 days of training and then > take an exam. Again, at this point we are talking about the design of the > certification, not whether or not to HAVE one. > Plus, there'll ALWAYS be ney-sayers. That doesn't really need to MEAN > anything other that proof of our diversity. The difference. I'm looking up said hill, realizing why it's there, and concluding that I don't really want certifications. You're looking at it, ignoring why it's there, and wondering why we're not already at the top. No, I am NOT talking about the design of the certification. I'm talking about whether we want to have one. No, you're NOT going to sell me on the idea that we want one because our's will be perfect and solve our problems. I'm going to look at the idea and judge based on how I think it will work, not how you think it could. Of course you don't need me, or people who think like me, to get certifications. So feel free to ignore me and do it if you want. > > Trust me, when people go and complain about Perl's > > shortcomings, they're not likely to complain about ther > > training (or lack thereof) or certifications. They complain about > > everything that they dislike about Perl. The only time that I > > see people talking about the importance of lacking a > > certification is when they're arguing that Perl needs to have > > certifications. > > You can complain about anything you feel like complaining about. This is > part of our nature. People will always find things to complain about. > People LOVE knocking UNcool things. Part of the idea of a certification > program is to make Perl a little more "In" than it is now. Java is not a > perfect language but you don't hear too many people complaining about it. > It's too popular. Just think "highschool". Nobody has responded to my point that of the top 5 languages out there right now, 4 do not have a widely accepted certification. So I think that I'll say it again. Somehow C, C++, PHP and Perl have so far succeeded despite the lack of a widely accepted certification of any kind. Java is the exception, not the rule. And I'm dubious that a certification would really matter much. I should backtrack. I think that certifications mean a lot if you are trying to reassure people that you have the skills that you claim to have. That's why they love them in India - saying that everyone is certified and you've been audited at CMM level 5 helps address the discomfort of depending on the third world. (And the incentives are such that there is pressure to hand out certifications easily and to audit generously, which cheapens the value of those certifications and audits...) Certifications also mean a lot when they are introduced to exclude people who don't have very solid qualifications. Of course certifications like that take several *years* of training to properly prepare for (not days). And nobody seems to be advocating a Perl certification which is designed to keep most existing Perl programmers from being able to call themselves Perl programmers. > > Perl is used for a lot of different things. Perl tends to be good > > glue. Which means that you need to understand the things that > > you're trying to glue together. > > > > It will be difficult to impossible to provide a single curriculum that > > addresses all of the different needs to be useful everywhere from > > mod_perl to database processing to bioinformatics to system > .... > > No simple certification is going to address this problem. > > I don't consider this a huge problem. > Certification is not meant to teach everything that is needed. It's > really just to give enough of a taste so that they know how to run on > their own. I hear that and hear, "Certification is meant to be fairly useless." Then I wonder what the point is supposed to be. Regards, Ben _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
