[BSDcert] Initial thoughts

[George Georgalis]

On Sun, Dec 19, 2004 at 07:52:06AM -0500, Sunny Dubey wrote:
>
>Finally, if you establish a cert there is no real viable market for, I don't 
>think you'll ever beat the chicken and the egg problem.  (Managers look for 
>people with those certs, and people getting those certs because they think 
>mangers are looking for them.)
>

I think the key is to develop a self substantiating cert, where the
value is not from reputation but from content. For example if 1,000
difficult, 1,000 med, and a 1,000 easy problems are "ported" to each OS;
then, candidates choose an OS and tackle 10 random difficult, 20 med and
30 easy problems in 2 hours.

The cert has no reputation but anyone can see the questions (possibly
in a restricted way) and determine the value of completing the test for
themself.

There should probably be other aspects of a cert, but this test
will show that the candidates can just fix the problem (no time for
research). Even if they study all the questions, completing those 40
random problems in 2 hours would demonstrate the competence the test is
certifying. (adjust numbers to suit)

The real hotshots can win a cert for each offered OS, with no failures
each year/version it is offered.

// George


-- 
George Georgalis, systems architect, administrator Linux BSD IXOYE
http://galis.org/george/ cell:646-331-2027 mailto:george at galis.org