Slashdot Mirror
Measuring LAMP Competency?
An anonymous reader writes "Our company is getting ready to hire a number of programmers. While the majority of the prospective candidates do have good-looking resumes, we are looking to see if we can get some clear metrics in the assessment process. After a little research we have learned that there is a well-established PHP + MySQL training and certification process, and some of the candidates are already certified. There is also a candidate with a good portfolio, a lot of experience, and no certification. Most of the applicants also have some college/university science-related education. So our goal is to be able to somehow measure LAMP overall competency as well as basic computer science concepts such as BNF, data normalization, OOP, MVC, etc. How do Slashdot readers go about this kind of characterization?"
That's a pretty bold assertion. I assert that it is not true.
Although... most certifications are entry level. They only say that you've read the material, have done some practice and have a basic understanding of the theory. They *try* to test for experience, but the Cisco, Microsoft and Linux certs can be passed without experience. I've written others, but I've seen few certs which contradict this.
Intermediate industry certifications mimic designations. They require nomination/sponsorship and years of experience, also point systems to maintain certification. They're much harder to fake.
All of these certifications make a reasonable minimum requirement. That's all. Most people I've met who are anti-cert seem to be resentful that they'd have to study material to acquire product knowledge in an area they've never seen, nor expect to see. Those people of course are missing knowledge. Maybe it's relevant to their jobs, maybe it's not. They'll never know, and they might spend weeks trying to figure out some problem because they don't know the capabilities of the software/tool/product.
Now I have to get back to work fixing some device which was deployed by some self-taught boob who didn't adhere to best practices for the device... probably because they used the default configuration without knowing what the defaults were. They of course moved on, and are probably telling people that certifications don't matter...
Although... most certifications are entry level. They only say that you've read the material, have done some practice and have a basic understanding of the theory. They *try* to test for experience, but the Cisco, Microsoft and Linux certs can be passed without experience. I've written others, but I've seen few certs which contradict this.
Woah, there, buddy.
Yes, there are entry level certificates for a lot of things:
A+ - anyone who puts this on a resume who is going for anything other than a repairman is stretching.
MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) - you have passed any one MS test
PMP - congrats you're a PHB-prototype.
etc.
But, there's a LOT of pooh-poohing of certs around here, and some of it isn't warranted.
For example: People who have a CCNP have passed four different cisco tests, including a troubleshooting one. That could be crammed for probably, as it's strictly a multiple choice test, but most people who have a CCNP probably have at least a decent familiarity with Cisco equipment.
People who have an MCSE have passed 7 Microsoft tests. Yes, you can cram for this and learn in books / etc, but - it's still more difficult than people think. How many people do you actually know that have gone as far as really getting their MCSE? There's a lot, but not as many as who think that it's just a piece of paper and stupid test. There's some higher level domain configuration and troubleshooting, etc.
And the RHCE (which I recently got) is a literal hands-on test - they hand you a broken linux box which you have to fix, and then a list of things to make it do via whatever method you think best (i.e. sendmail or postifx, as long as it delivers mail etc).
Certifications are not the end-all be-all of knowledge measurement. But, they're not completely worthless either. I see people on slashdot all the time who are like "I don't trust someone with a certification", or "I trust someone with an RHCE less than I trust someone without one!". That just doesn't make any sense.
~X
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