Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate • Hacker News Board

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#61

Post by gdp » Tue, Sep 22, 2009, 9:08 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #59

amalcon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a pilot or a physician makes a mistake, there is no chance for someone else to correct it. That's why these professions (physicians especially) require expensive certifications, and continuing expenses to keep these certifications current. Engineers are probably a better comparison: while engineers do have expensive certifications, they aren't the ones doing most of the engineering. Instead, they're the ones ver…

So because there's a chance for someone to fix a bug is a reason that certifications are useless in software? Not buying it for a second. Whether or not the bug can be fixed is immaterial: it may have already caused thousands of $$ of problems even if fixed. Tell that to a business whose eCommerce site has been down for a day because of a dumb error by an inexperienced programmer. As far as your comment about enginee…

I'm with you on this one.

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#62

Post by timwiseman » Tue, Sep 22, 2009, 9:12 PM UTC

theli0nheart wrote: post #57

timwiseman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you should hire on the basis of any certification, but they make an excellent flag as to whether someon should get the interview. Even in screening resumes it absolutely should not be your only deciding factor, but it is one good factor to look for when going through large stacks of resumes.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Programmers can learn to be great at what they do by _doing_. How many doctors do you think could learn what they know without going to medical school? None. This is why you must have an MD to practice medicine. Programming has no barrier to entry. One of the only ways to see how well someone can write code is by actually looking at their code. There's no shortcut, for better or for worse.

Everything you said is right. The best way to judge a programmer is through a combination of talking with them, reviewing their code, and using a finished product they made.

With that said, most hiring managers are deluged the moment they announce a job opening. You cannot practically do a code review on every applicant. When staring at a stack of resumes you need to be able to tell who is worth the time to do an interview and possibly a code review on.

When I see a certification on a resume, it tells me a couple of things:

1. They studied at least enough to pass that test. As someone who has passed many of these tests, I am well aware that for most certifications this is a low bar indeed, but that is more than the nothing that many resumes have, especially for entry level positions.

2. They care enough to take the time to do this. I know they are doing it primarily to impress hiring managers, so again this is a low bar but it is more than nothing.

Especially when dealing with entry level candidates, it is a valuable data point in determining who gets an interview. I would never recommend making a hiring decision based on it, but, especially at the entry level, it is a good way to help pick out people for interviews and possible code reviews.

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#63

Post by amalcon » Tue, Sep 22, 2009, 9:18 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #59

amalcon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a pilot or a physician makes a mistake, there is no chance for someone else to correct it. That's why these professions (physicians especially) require expensive certifications, and continuing expenses to keep these certifications current. Engineers are probably a better comparison: while engineers do have expensive certifications, they aren't the ones doing most of the engineering. Instead, they're the ones ver…

So because there's a chance for someone to fix a bug is a reason that certifications are useless in software? Not buying it for a second. Whether or not the bug can be fixed is immaterial: it may have already caused thousands of $$ of problems even if fixed. Tell that to a business whose eCommerce site has been down for a day because of a dumb error by an inexperienced programmer. As far as your comment about enginee…

You're making a leap here. The chance for someone to fix a bug does not make developer certifications useless. The chance for someone to catch a bug during review, before it harms anyone (which is what I was referring to) still does not make developer certifications useless. The latter does, however, decrease their marginal utility. This is why it's an apt comparison to engineering: an engineer can't "patch" a defect in his design once it's been produced, but he can have other engineers look it over beforehand.

Now, what I mean by "certified" varies a bit across disciplines. The professional engineer cert is a general certification, which is generally much less useful than specific certifications for particular disciplines. The considerations in electrical engineering are considerably different from those in, say, structural engineering. While there is also significant overlap, you're not going to get a general-purpose "engineer" who can verify both.

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#64

Post by ilyak » Tue, Sep 22, 2009, 9:36 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #33

axod wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Joe the Developer is entrusted with writing code that can cost people money and cause damage. In some cases, it can endanger lives and businesses." That's what tests are for.

NO, that's what proper design & development process is for. Testing is only a (small) part of that process and as we've known for decades, you can't test quality into a product. Hell, just a few minutes ago, someone brought me a piece of code that has been HAMMERED on for the last nine months and it still has a bug that wasn't noticed until today! gdp is right: certifications are useful if they are rigorous, targeted…

Knowledge you need to have changes every three years in programming. They have no chance to catch that up.

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#65

Post by ilyak » Tue, Sep 22, 2009, 9:40 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #59

amalcon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a pilot or a physician makes a mistake, there is no chance for someone else to correct it. That's why these professions (physicians especially) require expensive certifications, and continuing expenses to keep these certifications current. Engineers are probably a better comparison: while engineers do have expensive certifications, they aren't the ones doing most of the engineering. Instead, they're the ones ver…

So because there's a chance for someone to fix a bug is a reason that certifications are useless in software? Not buying it for a second. Whether or not the bug can be fixed is immaterial: it may have already caused thousands of $$ of problems even if fixed. Tell that to a business whose eCommerce site has been down for a day because of a dumb error by an inexperienced programmer. As far as your comment about enginee…

How much $$$ do you bet on certified developers making fewer (less severe) mistakes reliably?

Would it be ten? Thousand? Your yearly salary?

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#66

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 22, 2009, 9:50 PM UTC

gdp wrote: post #30

roedog88 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea that certifying developers and not certifying safety critical software is a non starter. On safety critical projects, certification will add to existing and onerous validation and verification costs. The process requirements on these projects (DO-178B) call for an organization to institute a systematic way of developing software across the project that everyone on the project follows. An additional c…

You appear to have inferred incorrectly that I am talking about safety critical work. I am not. I'm talking about anything that people are expected to spend money on. The certification passes to the software, and then users are capable of making slightly more informed decisions. I'm a formal methods geek, so I generally advocate theorem provers for stuff which is actually safety critical. To me, certification of deve…

[deleted]

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#67

Post by cema » Tue, Sep 22, 2009, 10:29 PM UTC

gdp wrote: post #3

Joe the Developer is entrusted with writing code that can cost people money and cause damage. In some cases, it can endanger lives and businesses. Joe the Developer doesn't need a certificate, but "we the people" (as in the people who have his software inflicted upon them) would rather he did. The certification argument seems to forget whose benefits from certification. It's not the developer - it's the people who ar…

This is basically a CYA ("cover your ass") argument. It seems to be a correct one. Which explains the (mostly negative) attitude to certifications from the community.

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#68

Post by nitrogen » Wed, Sep 23, 2009, 1:13 AM UTC

It's my view that certification is an attempt by non-programmers to find some substitute metric that allows them to measure a programmer's worth instead of using the only metric that should matter, the quality of their actual work. I'm not convinced that this is necessary or even possible.

Could someone please explain to me why a market-based meritocracy for programmers isn't good enough? The good programmers either establish a reputation and references by doing quality work for other companies, or they can provide examples of code they wrote independently.

I think that the lack of mandatory certification is one thing that has allowed software to become such a vibrant field. It's as much an artistic or creative profession as an engineering profession. For the jobs that require engineering precision, a developer's work (or an artist-for-hire's portfolio) should be sufficient qualification.

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#69

Post by gdp » Wed, Sep 23, 2009, 9:07 AM UTC

bfung wrote: post #48

gdp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about programming and creating programs. That would be a really, really useless certification.

That would be a really, really useless certification. Please explain? The ancestor post by huhtenberg says he obtained certification for Visual Basic although he never wrote a single line of it before. My suggestion for the certification process is to actually use the skill at question, and using that as a basis for obtaining the paper that says "Yes, I can do this proficiently", where the skill in question is softwa…

Because there is no objective measure for "quality" within an individual implementation within a language. The best we can hope for is some guarantee that people know what the tools and techniques available to them are, and that they know the factors that influence software quality.

That would be more valuable than being language certified.

Re: Joe the Developer doesn’t need a certificate

#70

Post by wildjim » Thu, Sep 24, 2009, 2:33 PM UTC

synnik wrote: post #19

I've always said that certifications are a base level of competence for a job, not a proof of expertise. When a senior dev rants about how they don't need a certificate, I agree, but counter them with the question: If certificates are so easy to get and meaningless, why haven't you bothered to get them? Note: I can think of a number of reasonable answers why not... but their response to that question is often enlight…

Non-Education Board certificates are not a baseline for anything besides having read the book and paid the money. They are essentially meaningless, these days -- more a way for a Com to fleece you -- and seeing them on a CV, I tend to view them as noise; nice to have, I guess, but proving absolutely nothing useful. A "Preferred Reading List" might mean more to me on a CV, but that's easy to fake.

The biggest problem is cert's would almost never pass the same standards as the equivalent from most govt's Education Exam board. If they did, perhaps they would be more useful. Education Exam standards can also vary significantly between countries, and these com's sadly can't be bothered in expending the effort internationally.