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Programming Prodigy Arfa Karim Passes Away At 16

quantr writes "Arfa Karim, child prodigy, youngest certified Microsoft Professional in the world and winner of the president’s Pride of Performance, breathed her last breath on Saturday night at the Combined Military Hospital in Lahore. Arfa had an epileptic attack on December 22 and had been in a coma since."

6 of 536 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Certified Microsoft Professional by Joe_Dragon · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Well at the basic level Certified just means you can pass the test. Alot of college is the same way.

    Now if there was some stuff based on real work and more of a on the job testing / training then it's more.

    But in the past some of the Certified Microsoft Professionals where people who are good at taking tests and yet don't have a idea on how to work with systems.

  2. Re:Reading the early comments... by bipbop · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hahahahaha.

    No.

  3. Re:Certified Microsoft Professional by tyrione · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Well at the basic level Certified just means you can pass the test.

    Do you know how old she was when she passed it? She was 9.

    You may not be impressed by that fact, but I am.

    Mozart was composing single draft sonatas at an earlier age. What's your point?

  4. Re:Reading the early comments... by bonch · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    That's already happening. It's just done with a randomized pool of moderators rather than letting everyone moderate so they can drown out the idiots.

    Slashdot absolutely needs a Reddit-like moderation system. It's stupid that it only takes a couple of people to put you into -1 territory when the site is visited by thousands.

  5. Re:Certified Microsoft Professional by billcopc · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Have you ever taken that certification exam ? Maybe then you wouldn't be so impressed.

    One must also consider that not everyone is as dumb/irresponsible as the average North American kid. I grew up with other kids that would be considered "mature" by such standards, but really it was perfectly common and expected to learn things from your parents and uncles, instead of parking us in front of a TV. I had an uncle who was studing CS, so by age 2 I was writing my first Hello World program in BASIC. My neighbour was an EE, so naturally his kid was a whiz at electronics and robotics. By the time we hit 3rd grade, we would spend our evenings and weekends porting each other's computer games (he had a C64, I had an Atari).

    Kids don't have any of the distractions and frustrations of us adults. If they are interested in something, they can easily invest 16 hours a day into that passion. They have no bills to pay, no spouses to patronize. Given the kind of harsh parenting seen in many 3rd world countries, I'm surprised we haven't heard of other kids getting an MS cert even earlier than 9. If a kid is bright enough, you could train them to pass the test by the time they're out of diapers - at the expense of their sanity of course.

    --
    -Billco, Fnarg.com
  6. Re:Software Development by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Trolls don't care what you think about them specifically. They want the attention and you just gave it to them. You are part of the problem.