Re: Lua certification announcement

[Jamie Webb <j@...>]

On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 02:59:52PM +0200, Erik Hougaard wrote:
> I don't feel that a certification is all bad.
> 
> I have been in the position where I had to hire Lua-programmers and that 
> a pretty though job. It will ease the scanning/selection process. Cause 
> if people arent "live" on lua-L / LuaForge / luausers.org they arent 
> really easy to get a reference on.

I agree with Adriano. Learning to program well in any language takes
years of hands-on experience, and is not something that can be
demonstrated in a test.  Learning Lua to whatever standard these
people require, for an already competent programmer, probably takes
about a week of study. So, who should you hire? The skilled programmer
who isn't certified because he has no particular career interest in
Lua, or the idiot who managed to scrape though some certification
scheme?

Relying on certifications just discriminates in favour of the people
who chase qualifications, for no particular reason. I don't believe there's
any more chance that they will actually be competent. Qualifications are
too easy for anyone attain if they work hard enough for them.

I think that far too much emphasis is placed on specific technology
experience in the marketplace, rather than solid basic understanding
of the discipline.

Note that I'm not saying I disagree with testing; you can at least
pick out many bad programmers that way. But to do that, the test has
to be run in-house as part of the interview process.

-- Jamie Webb