Re: Lua Certification - an informal discussion

[Benno <benjl@...>]

On Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 14:40:53 -0700, Eric Scouten wrote:
>Peter and others, I share your skepticism about certification programs 
>and, frankly, CS degree programs (at least in the US -- I won't bash 
>those from other countries ;-) ).
>
>When I did my degree work in the late 80s and early 90s -- after already 
>having done some successful commercial software development, I was 
>shocked at how poorly CS programs addressed what I believe is the key 
>skill in software development: knowing how to select and then assemble 
>small, seemingly-unrelated building blocks into a coherent entity that 
>can solve a much larger problem than any of the individual building blocks.
>
>All the languages and libraries in the world are useless if you can't 
>master that skill, and I don't believe for a minute that a 
>multiple-choice exam can divine its existence.
>
>Show me what you've already done in the field (even if it was on your 
>own time) and I'll believe you're a competent programmer. Show me a 
>certificate and I'll believe nothing.

As long as we are sharing stories, I recently interviewed and hired two
programmers that will in part be working on Lua code, and it didn't
really matter that they didn't currently know Lua. What mattered was
they demonstrated that they would be able to learn Lua when required
to use it. It's hard enough to find smart programmers these days, I'm
not going to be too picky about specific languages they know.

Cheers,

Benno