Re: Certification

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 2:52 PM, Bob Lunney <bobl(at)aweber(dot)com> wrote:
> I, for one, am more likely to ask if someone has read Greg Smith's book ("Who's Greg Smith?" - out at first), which mailing lists they are follow and how often ("What mailing list?" - out at second), or what is their favorite feature in PostgreSQL ("Joins!" - out at third). I am more interested in in their knowhow and interest in expanding their skills then a mere certification.
>

This is true for pretty much every job, every position, every context,
every community.
Certification is not meant to prove passion, but that you are able to
do a specific set of things.Of course it does not mean you can do in
the better way, but at least you are supposed to be able to do and
therefore you are supposed to be fired if don't do them.

> However, for those who live in that sad world where certifications are a minimum entry level requirement, a certification created by community consensus makes sense, so long as the criteria for certification are open and public.

I've done the BSD certification, and it has a very interesting point
in my opinion: certification is automatically renewed if you prove you
have been "community" friendly in a technical way (i.e., you have
written at least n papers on a technical subject related to BSD,
etc.).

I remember back in 2007 there was quite an effort to promote a
PostgreSQL certification group based on BSD experience (if my memory
serves well Joshua was on board of such effort). I don't remember why
it failed and why we don't have one yet.
I guess we are much more interested in making things run smooth than
in comparing our scores.

Luca