[ale] Certification (cont'd)

[Derek]

At 03:16 PM 7/17/96 -0400, Christopher Fowler wrote:
>When we go into and interview and we tell the employer that we "know Linux",
>would it not look better to have a piece of paper that proves it. Some
>employers ignore paper, but some don't.  It is a "win win" situation.

I don't agree, and I get worried when I hear phrases like "win win"... any
employer who knows anything at ALL about Linux knows that pieces of paper
are pretty much meaningless... and if you show him one, he'll wonder just
what you're trying to disguise.  There was a running joke that seems to persist
among several companies I've worked for, that CNE stood for "Certified No
Experience." ... I agreed with it.  I knew more that was applicable to a given
situation than ANY fresh CNE out of the classes did... only after someone has 
been a sysadmin for awhile do they really get the idea of how things work and 
what kinds of things need to happen.  

See, it seems to me to also be contrary to the "spirit" of Linux to try to
impose some sort of external structure on it such as a CLE/whatever.  If
nothing else, are you intending to be certified in specific distributions,
or just
general kernel-hacking, or...?  UNIX is difficult enough to "certify" experience
in, as someone else in this thread has mentioned already, without trying to
make it even more complicated.

And finally, It also seems to me that an employer who can see the benefits
of Linux (it works, it's free, it works WELL, etc.) isn't going to need a piece
of paper... he'll either trust you, or ask a lot of detailed questions to
make you
prove it ("Explain DNS."), or he'll just wait and fire you if you lied.  The
kind
of employer who needs a piece of paper to give him confidence won't be
choosing Linux in the first place... it's not established, it's not a "major
player",
and it's free (a major strike; these sort of superiors believe that nobody
would give anything away for free.)... these employers will go for SCO, or 
one of the other "name" brands.  If you doubt me, I know of a large number
of major corporations who still buy EXCLUSIVELY IBM-brand hardware, and
nothing but... DESPITE the common perception by the average bear that Blue
hardware is nothing but a pile of trouble and less effective than any of the
other
"name" players such as Compaq, Dell, and Gateway... just to hit on some of 
the top ones.  

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