NYCPHP Meetup

[Brian D.]

I'm sure this has all been discussed before (with much more flair and
depth than I'm capable of) but one of the hurdles in developer
certification that appears most obvious to me is that our industry
contains so much variety.

Variety is probably not the best word for it, but what I mean is that
the developer who is creating an application for monitoring nuclear
reactors is probably going to need to be much more thorough than
another developer who's just setting up a custom blog for a popular
band. There are wide areas inside the industry that require different
levels of talent and detailedness.

Although I'm Zend certified, I think that such certifications are
really quite useless (I felt I had to get the certification just so I
could say that without sounding like a hypocrite). It proves very
little except that the developer is good at taking tests and
memorizing material. There *might* be a way to develop a test that
creates a valid stamp of approval, but I have yet to see it. Again,
the problem comes back to the variety inherent to the industry. One
test can't encompass it all. You've got medical app devs that need to
be familiar with HIPAA regulations, financial app devs that need to be
familiar with Sox, and front-end guys that need to have familiarity
with UI principles...

I could go on, but I shan't.

- Brian

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 8:27 AM, Urb LeJeune <urb at e-government.com> wrote:

>  It's another thread but, should there be certification available for
> programmers and web designers? If we
>  ever want to be considered a profession, that's the first step. I was in
> the stock brokerage business when
>  the designation Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) first came into being. It
> was extraordinarily difficult
>  and it took almost two years after the announcement before the first
> designation were awarded. It required
>  two 8 hour day testing sessions. It made a huge difference in the industry
> and these days you will not get
>  a senior level job in a research department without a CFA. Same thing
> happened with Chartered Financial
>  Planner (CFP).
>
>  I'm unsure of the procedure, but how/when does one change the subject when
> we have drifted into a new
>  area?
>
>
>
>  Urb
>
>  Dr. Urban A. LeJeune, President
>  E-Government.com
>  609-294-0320  800-204-9545
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>  E-Government.com lowers you costs while increasing your expectations.
>
>
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