Re: Outrage that OCP exams are now unproctored - Comments?

Nuno, or is it Noons now? :)

There are a couple of things in this I wanted to comment on, just to make some clarifications. I'll snip all the other stuff because this chain is already far too long! :)

>We all know of the guys with 5 years "certified training and experience"
>in Forms V4.1, available on the market 6 months before that
>product reached production status...

Hmm, maybe a bit extreme! :) I do remember one occasion when a good friend of mine was beaten for a job by someone who had more experience with Oracle7, when that version had just come out. I was rather sceptical at that stage that anyone had experience with Oracle7, but as it turned out I was wrong, because the person who got the job was an Oracle employee looking to leave Oracle, and they DID have more experience! I could say the same thing myself when 9i came out. As the 9i lead for Consulting, I had been using 9i since its alpha releases, so I had almost a year's experience before 9i went Production. Unusual, I admit, but it can happen.
>
>What Oracle provided with OCP was a way for them to make $$$
>out of a real customer need. Never mind if it actually
>satisfied it. And of course it didn't go unnoticed that
>Oracle was getting into the services arena at the time and
>"implicitly" all their consultants would be "certified"
>(as opposed to the "great unwashed")...

Sorry, can't let this one pass. Oracle has been "in the services arena" for a hell of a lot longer than the OCP has been around. Also, our consultants are not "implicitly certified". We have to go through exactly the same process as you guys do. The only difference is that we get a cheaper rate on the exams.
>
>Never mind that indeed most of their "consultants" had never
>even touched a database, let alone be trained on anything!
>Cripes, the place had such a turnaround back then there was barely
>enough time to train anyone before they got out on their
>own and formed their own corporation...

Sorry, wrong again, or at least it might be just your experience versus my experience. I was in Oracle (though not Consulting) when the OCP came out, and many of the consultants I worked with then are either still with Oracle or left as part of the shakeout of the economic climate over the past couple of years. I think if you look at the different types of consultants in Oracle, there are more NON-technical consultants than there are technical - people like functional Apps consultants, project managers and so on. Yes you can get these sorts of consultants from Oracle, but should they be expected to know much about the database? Probably not!

My $0.02 worth, FWIW! :)

Pete
>
>It would have been much, much simpler and more reliable if
>Oracle had instituted a certification program for those that
>PROVIDED education on their products. There were quite a
>few "doubtfull" ones. And I use the term losely.
>
>
>> I was a bit cantankerous about the details, arguing that the
>> tests seemed to be skewed against the more experienced, and am still a
>> bit surprised that the process turned out so much worse than I
>> predicted.
>>
>
>The process should never have taken place. It provided
>zero value to the user community.
>
>The day Oracle defines EXACTLY what does OCP mean and what does
>it EXACTLY qualify anyone as is the day the darn thing will
>deserve any respect.
>As a user, I want to know what I can use an OCP as.
>A developer? A designer? A mentor? An architect (heaven forbid!)
>A DBA? What the heck does it really mean and what am I getting
>for my money when I hire one?
>
>Until then it is simply a shameless money-grabbing scheme.
>
>--
>Cheers
>Nuno Souto
>nsouto_at_optusnet.com.au.nospam

HTH. Additions and corrections welcome.

Pete

SELECT standard_disclaimer, witty_remark FROM company_requirements; Received on Mon Dec 30 2002 - 11:48:08 CST