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Re: Oracle Certification

From: Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 06:52:33 -0800
Message-ID: <1080139930.534291@yasure>


Hans Forbrich wrote:

>>That would kill it, or devalue it, for the same reason it has done so
>>with the OCP. Education needs to be for the pure purpose of education.
>>Not with an ROI attached: Something any unit of Oracle Corp. must, by
>>necessity, have.

>
> Are you implying that ALL cerification (CNE, CTT+, LPIC, MCSE ...) is of no
> value, or just Oracle's? Or perhaps just corporate-sponsored (CNE, CLE,
> MSCE ...)?
Depends on how you define value. Here are some possibilities.
  1. Value = Helps the certificate holder get a job
  2. Value = Proves to an employer the certificate holder has a skill set
  3. Value = Proves holder possesses a specific level of competency.

If CNE, CTT+, LPIC, MCSE meet the first criteria then they have value. My argument is that the OCP does not. Nor does it meet criterions 2 or 3.

>>>That is unlikely, given the threads on Oracle's Support, Education and
>>>Consulting deficiencies we've seen in the past few months.  (And in doing
>>>so, Oracle is only hurting themselves.)
>>
>>In a sense I agree. What Oracle could do that would best serve the
>>long-term purposes of Oracle would be to make education grants to
>>universities that demonstrate the expertise required to teach not just
>>the Oracle product ... but rather how to address business problems
>>using their tools. Students that learn to solve business problems with
>>spreadsheets use spreadsheets. Those that learn to solve problems with
>>a specific RDBMS, in a setting that teaches multiversion read and write
>>consistency will want to buy that with which they are most familiar and
>>comfortable.

>
> (I have a somewhat different definition of University. My def'n puts your
> course more into a technical school - think CalTech, MIT, 'PolyTechnik',
> and so on. But I know where you are going.)
> (I note there is a mild, although not unreasonable, self-serving aspect to
> your comment as well.)

It wouldn't put another dollar into my pocket. What it would do is allow the university to hire more people to teach. The number of students I teach would not go up by even one.

> Any funds that Oracle might spread towards Universities would soon be spread
> so thin as to be useless. Or only select Universities would get it. There
> are simply too many Universities and all have their hand out. So I don't
> think that will be of any value at all, other than to get the universities
> even more ticked at Oracle.

If it were spread universally I would agree with you. But if it were used in the same way that pharmaceutical companies make grants to medical schools ... well obviously that model already exists and works.

> There are other ways for Oracle to interact with post-secondary institutes,
> such as educational discounts on licenses, which would help more.

Or at least as much. Amazingly Oracle has actually sent its license dogs into major universities to argue licenses when the issue was not what the school was using for its own administration but rather for teaching students. Talk about an act of short-sightedness. One schools response ... they stopped teaching the subject. <sarcasm> Well that certainly helped Oracle's bottom-line </sarcasm>.

> You miss the point. The material is there, but you yourself state that
> "students are in no place to make the determination of what is correct and
> what is not." I'm suggesting a way to correct THAT problem by
> consolidating the information.

And I am agreeing.

>>The problem is that so many of the mistakes are eggregious. For example
>>the statement in the 9i OCP that you can't put an ORDER BY clause on a
>>view. That isn't a question of judgement or interpretation: It is just
>>plain wrong.

>
> Yup. Some material is obsolete - a holdover from the Oracle 6 or Oracle 7
> days. My Oracle 7.3 SQL Language manual definitely states that the ORDER
> BY clause is not permitted.
>
> Makes me wonder how many of these things are simply propogated myths or
> holdovers from the 'good old days'? Which doesn't excuse them, although it
> may account for them.
>
> Isn't there an "Oracle myths" site somewhere? Or is that a myth?

I know Tom Kyte has put together a presentation, I may have had a copy at one time, on the subject of Oracle myths. It would be a good place to start.

>>I would too. But in the current marketplace there is an overabundance of
>>talent. At least talent as defined by years of experience on a resume.
>>The last thing the marketplace needs is more with faux-experience. I
>>know you are in Alberta so I can address your marketplace directly. I
>>know more than a half-dozen Oracle professionals from Calgary and
>>Edmonton that are currently at AT&T Wireless in Redmond Washington
>>because they can't find work at home and they are not in the US by
>>preference.

>
> You again miss the point. Whether we have too many is irrelevant. People
> are asking the question "How do I get Oracle training?" In some cases they
> are doing so because that is being demanded of them by their employer. I
> think it's our business to fulfill THAT demand and we're on our honour to
> fulfill it properly!

I go thte point. Currently I have no satisfactory answer. Because, in truth, I don't think there are more than a hanful of places one can go to obtain what I would call an education in Oracle. Anyone doing it for profit is almost undoubtedly trying to increase the number of students and thus has a different agenda. Applicants to MIT or CalTech will hear the word "No" far far more often than the word "Yes". That, to me, demonstrates that their first priority is quality. My model is medical schools ... I think the education of Oracle professionals should be done along those lines. A degree program followed by a residency. The residencies could be funded by large corporations that would act as the recipients of the resident's services just as teaching hospitals support medical residencies.

> In Alberta's case, the problem is simply that the competition (MS) is
> perceived as much more attractive than Oracle strictly on a pricing basis.

Which is amazing as the prices are effectively identical.

> From where I stand it seems the offshoring is simply a reaction to a demand
> by shareholders and C-levels to cut expenses. Amusingly I read a recent
> report states that the success of offshoring in India is causing their
> salaries and prices to skyrocket so much that the "offshorists" are needing
> to look elsewhere - if I find the reference, I'll post it. My guess is
> that offshoring is a cycle that will not take long to fizzle.

I hope you are correct. If not we will all be saying "Do you want fries with that". And probably in Chinese.

> Do we need any rules? Such as 'post reference where the error exists', and
> 'post why it's wrong'?

I think references and/or examples are critical: Preferably demonstrable proof.

> And - are there any possible problems, such as legal implications to
> referencing specific books, etc.
>
> /Hans

Last time I checked ... free speech was free speech. If anyone wants to sue me for pointing out that you can use ORDER BY in a view ... let them and their attack dogs try it.

-- 
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)
Received on Wed Mar 24 2004 - 08:52:33 CST

Original text of this message

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