Subject: Re: Conference moment: Lisp certification? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 02 Nov 2002 21:33:43 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3245261623992697@naggum.no> * Marc Spitzer | I am not saying it is not a good metric, I think it is. But that it is | too subject to outside influences for this purpose. I must admit to some ulterior motives. First, if this was the requirement, I would get off the hook because I have given a paper at a Lisp conference. But (more) importantly, it would make a lot of people submit papers to Lisp conferences and thus would make the conferences more interesting and more frequent. Fundamentally, I do not see the point with certification if it is a "selfish" measure, i.e., one where the community benefit of having one more certified programmer is negative, which it would be if the purpose was to make it easier for managers to replace one Common Lisp programmer with another or have more people compete for the same jobs. If managers want that, they can have it, but giving it to them should benefit the community more than the particular manager. Otherwise, managers get a strangle-hold on the market and will work hard to /lower/ the certification requirements so that they have more people to choose from and can lower their costs. The entrance fee to the Certified Common Lisp Programmer market should be that you have done something that clearly benefits the existing certified programmers, not just something that benefits the /future/ candidates. The same rationale underlies the requirements to grant professional degrees. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.