Re: Lua certification announcement

[Adriano Ferreira <a.r.ferreira@...>]

Most of the interest by Lua is directly connected to people and
companies that make money with Lua code, like game-producing
companies. But who are you  going to trust to certify a Lua
programmer? Will the certification be adequate for your needs?
Certifications can bent and targeted by specific interests, which
decreases the value of the certification and becomes just a useless
expense of money on the part of the people seeking to certificate
themselves.

The kind of certification you said to "give" tells a programmer
successfully completed a project, which implied such and such skills,
and that is a fact. If someone needs similar experience, your
certification is certainly a good starting point. On the other hand,
the kind of certification a certification company gives tells a
"programmer" completed successfully its exam (which may or may not be
complete for your purposes, and which does not tell a good exam-maker
from a good programmer).

I see your point that certification can ease scanning/selection
processes and that this certification will be taken with a bit of salt
when evaluating candidates. In the process of evaluation, a more
detailed survey of the candidate performance than a note A will be
useful. Will certification companies provide this or they will hide
their methods and exams from the other players?

Like in most situations you depend on open-source software, you can't
rely on volunteer work because, obviously, they are not getting paid
to do this for you. But Lua is one of those pieces of software which
is robust and stable enough for many business to use them as part of
their infrastructure. If they need customization, they hire employers
or consulting to incorporate their needs. And occasionally ideas and
code are given back to open-source domain, where they can be stressed
and enhanced (or even ignored).

Like you said about yours, mine is also just a opinion on the matter.
I have the habit to criticize hard attempts to standardize and
simplify what makes a good programer.

Regards,
Adriano.