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O'Reilly Now Competing With Sun Java Certificates
Joel Aufgang writes "O'Reilly Media's O'Reilly School of Technology in partnership with the University of Illinois has just launched a Java Programming Certificate Series, which looks like it's intended to compete with the Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP) certification. According to O'Reilly's press release, this is not an exam-based certification but rather a series of project based instructor-led courses that, if you pass, earns certification backed by the University of Illinois. Also interesting is the use of Eclipse as the preferred learning platform as opposed to Netbeans."
suck my cock, you homos!
A couple weeks ago, while browsing around the library downtown, I had to take a piss. As I entered the john, Barack Obama -- the messiah himself -- came out of one of the booths. I stood at the urinal looking at him out of the corner of my eye as he washed his hands. He didn't once look at me. He was busy and in any case I was sure the secret service wouldn't even let me shake his hand.
As soon as he left I darted into the booth he'd vacated, hoping there might be a lingering smell of shit and even a seat still warm from his sturdy ass. I found not only the smell but the shit itself. He'd forgotten to flush. And what a treasure he had left behind. Three or four beautiful specimens floated in the bowl. It apparently had been a fairly dry, constipated shit, for all were fat, stiff, and ruggedly textured. The real prize was a great feast of turd -- a nine inch gastrointestinal triumph as thick as his cock -- or at least as I imagined it!
I knelt before the bowl, inhaling the rich brown fragrance and wondered if I should obey the impulse building up inside me. I'd always been a liberal democrat and had been on the Obama train since last year. Of course I'd had fantasies of meeting him, sucking his cock and balls, not to mention sucking his asshole clean, but I never imagined I would have the chance. Now, here I was, confronted with the most beautiful five-pound turd I'd ever feasted my eyes on, a sausage fit to star in any fantasy and one I knew to have been hatched from the asshole of Barack Obama, the chosen one.
Why not? I plucked it from the bowl, holding it with both hands to keep it from breaking. I lifted it to my nose. It smelled like rich, ripe limburger (horrid, but thrilling), yet had the consistency of cheddar. What is cheese anyway but milk turning to shit without the benefit of a digestive tract?
I gave it a lick and found that it tasted better then it smelled.
I hesitated no longer. I shoved the fucking thing as far into my mouth as I could get it and sucked on it like a big half nigger cock, beating my meat like a madman. I wanted to completely engulf it and bit off a large chunk, flooding my mouth with the intense, bittersweet flavor. To my delight I found that while the water in the bowl had chilled the outside of the turd, it was still warm inside. As I chewed I discovered that it was filled with hard little bits of something I soon identified as peanuts. He hadn't chewed them carefully and they'd passed through his body virtually unchanged. I ate it greedily, sending lump after peanutty lump sliding scratchily down my throat. My only regret was that Barack Obama wasn't there to see my loyalty and wash it down with his piss.
I soon reached a terrific climax. I caught my cum in the cupped palm of my hand and drank it down. Believe me, there is no more delightful combination of flavors than the hot sweetness of cum with the rich bitterness of shit. It's even better than listening to an Obama speech!
Afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't made it last longer. But then I realized that I still had a lot of fun in store for me. There was still a clutch of virile turds left in the bowl. I tenderly fished them out, rolled them into my handkerchief, and stashed them in my briefcase. In the week to come I found all kinds of ways to eat the shit without bolting it right down. Once eaten it's gone forever unless you want to filch it third hand out of your own asshole. Not an unreasonable recourse in moments of desperation or simple boredom.
I stored the turds in the refrigerator when I was not using them but within a week they were all gone. The last one I held in my mouth without chewing, letting it slowly dissolve. I had liquid shit trickling down my throat for nearly four hours. I must have had six orgasms in the process.
I often think of Barack Obama dropping solid gold out of his sweet, pink asshole every day, never knowing what joy it could, and at least once did, bring to a grateful democrat.
Some of these certification procedures are really starting to look like the mass of degree farms recently shut down.
"I took a class." can be even more easily abused than, "I passed a test." for posing false technical capability. Maybe not though. The market is definitely flooded with people using certifications to mean "ability." I hope this mitigates the problem rather than continuing it.
Why would I need the University of Illinois to give me a certificate when Thawte can be so much cheaper.... OIC.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Does anyone take those certifications seriously or are they there to take money away from programmers who don't know any better? I very rarely see a job that requires them and I think those that do are posted by folks who want to share the loss of money.
Also interesting is the use of Eclipse as the preferred learning platform as opposed to Netbeans.
They're both pigs. They take too long to start and whenever I move my cursor, they both hang - and this is with a 1.6 GHz Duo, a gig of Ram, on XP. Geeze, WTF! Do I need a frick'n gaming machine to write code now?!?
I took one earlier this year. It was primarily good for testing my ability to regurgitate information about the language and APIs. That's it.
If I were an employer, I would give much more credence to someone coming in as an entry level hire or switching from another language if they had something like this. Lab-based, graded courses show that you have at least some practical ability to apply the material.
In hindsight, I agree with a professor of mine who said that a single, solid A in a 400-level CS class is probably worth more than any programming certification starting out. If you want to do this on the cheap, just take a few classes at a community college. That's what I'm doing to get some "official training" to back up the fact that I do know C# well enough to make the switch from Java. One or two audited courses will have the same effect, but cost me less than $300 and I'll only have to do a few homework assignments and exams :)
Java Certification only proves you know how to answer trick questions. It's primarily just shows lines with several operators in it and you have to know which ones take priority.
The correct answer to most of the questions should be "This code is so horrible I would rewrite it to be clearer".
When hiring, I've found Java Certified people to be worse than the norm, in no way does it actually test your ability to program.
It's turtles all the way down.
Also interesting is the use of Eclipse as the preferred learning platform as opposed to Netbeans.
Wow, so they teach what people actually use? What a concept!
Kidding (sort of)... NetBeans may be wonderful. But I don't think I've talked to anyone that's used it on a regular basis since 2002, It's about 90% Eclipse and 9.9% IDEA, with the occasional hard-core VI guy.
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
It might be different on the networking side, but I've never seen a developer cert that was worth the paper it was printed on.
Programming certs are silly because programmers are usually hired by other programmers who use the same systems. Serious programs are rarely written by a single person. The manager of a Java programming team usually knows Java.
System administration certs make more sense because the hiring manager may not be familiar with the specific product, and so would be unable to verify the competence of prospective employees.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
That loud mouthed good for nothing son of a ...
Oh. Nevermind, carry on.
WE'LL DO IT LIVE
Got a pretty boring job right now, so I thought I'd tried to bump up my skills during regular office downtime. The Unix sysadmin modules are OK, and a million miles better than crappy 'learn-by-rote' microsoft courses. To get through them you do need to have some clue, though I have found them pretty easy (with 2 years' sysadmin experience). I would recommend them to a total beginner to get up to speed working on real systems. Anyone at a higher level can get just as much from a test system and a bunch of textbooks, for a far lower price.
I have a "Web Programming" cert from O'Reilly. One of the six (> $300 @) courses comprising said cert required me to "learn" Unix. I think we got as far as the 'ls' command. The O'Reilly folks are where I turn first for IT books, but, these courses simply do not measure up.