I tried to post these comments yesterday, but they don't seem to have gone
through, so I'll try again ...
(FWIW: This is a copy of a note I just sent to Allaire)
I was just looking at the page on the proposed certificate program and I
have some questions ...
* 2 years of high-level programming experience
(Please define this ... and why? )
* Experience with enterprise-level databases
What's wrong with Access?
The reason I ask these questions are ... I've been working with Cold Fusion
for nearly 18 months (at least). I've become fairly proficient at it. Good
enough to teach a class in beginning CF at a local continuation college. I
believe I'm very good with CFML and even though there is still much to
learn, I'm confident I can tackle just about any programming task CFML is
able to handle. I believe I'm good enough to be certified (or will be with
only a little more study and practice), but I'm never going to have
"high-level programming" experience, if by that you mean Java and/or C++. I
shouldn't say never, but I just don't see myself being able to meet that
requirement any time soon (which, economically, would be a necessity once
certification is in place).
As for "enterprise-level" databases. I assume Access doesn't qualify. But
for just about everything I do, anything else would be overkill. I have yet
to see any need to recommend to a client (or my employer -- I am both an
employee of a company and an independent developer) anything other than
Access. It can handle any small to medium Web site's needs and I don't see
myself moving beyond developing for small businesses and less than
mega-traffic Web sites. It's just more cost effective to stick with Access,
even though with my present employer I have free and easy access to Oracle
on Unix.
To me, you're setting the bar too high for certification. I'm sure I'm not
too far off in background and qualifications of your average CF customer.
I'm a non-programmer who needed a quick and easy way to Web-enable a
database one day and I stumbled into CF. As I became more familiar with CF,
the more enamoured of it I became and the more I studied and practiced and
the better I got. I can use every CFML tag, am fairly proficient with most
CF expressions, am able to optimize code and write fairly sophisticated
applications. The beauty of CF is that is both easy and high powered. To
exclude those of us who are just plain proficient at CF, but still not
"real" programmers, from certification strikes me as very unfair and misses
the core reason CF has been successful. If I'm not able to get certified it
could be economically damaging and that would be unfair.
It seems to me that being certified in CF should be about CF and not what
you know of any other programming language. It should be about using CF to
its best and highest level, but it still shouldn't matter what database
solution you use.
Now, I wouldn't be opposed to two levels of certification -- maybe a
Certified Professional for all the high level stuff and Certified Developer
for people who are just damn good in CF. But to exclude those of us who
aren't "real" programmers seems to run counter to what CF is about.
H.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Raymond K. Camden [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, April 24, 2000 12:29 PM
> To: CFTALK
> Subject: Information on Allaire.com about certification
>
> I thought some of you mind find this interesting:
>
> http://www.allaire.com/handlers/index.cfm?ID=15376&Method=Full&Title=Allai
> re
> %20Certified%20Professional%20Program%20Preview&Cache=False
>
> It's information about the Allaire Certified Professional Program. Enjoy.
>
>
>
>
>
=========================
Howard Owens
Web Producer
InsideVC.com
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
=========================
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