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

Noons <nsouto_at_optusnet.com.au.nospam> writes:

> Wanna bet 3 years ago this bloke would have found a job?
> Back then I wouldn't be able to work in "web-design"...
>
>
> At least this guy had taken a TAFE course, which has minor
> recognition. Many others didn't even bother with that...
>
>
> Thank God for the "recession"! We might (finally!) get rid
> of the "colleagues"...
>

Yes, I think I have to agree here. One thing I have noticed since the tech wreck is that on the whole, the people I now work with tend to be better qualified with more formal/tertiary qualifications and better conceptual understanding.

I was finding it very frustrating before when I would be working with a group of "developers/programmers/analysts" and find I was the only one who had any formal training. Many of these people were very intelligent, but their backgrounds were totally unrelated to software development. They could create applications in VB which looked good on the surface with windows, menus, flashy graphics, but which failed completely in a production environment or were totally impossible to maintain or extend. Often when I tried to explain concepts like data abstraction, designing efficient algorithms and designing/implementing with good maintenance practices they would just look at me blankly or laugh and say something like "Why bother, I'll be out of here in 2 years and it won't be my problem" etc. I often had arguments with some who believed I was just a snob because I thought formal qualifications were important - they would say it was irrelevent and their proof was they had a well paid job without any, so why should they bother. Most of them are now finding it very difficult to get a job.

Remember back in the early/mid 90's all those "web programmers" - I use to find it very amusing when someone called themselves a web programmer because they could write HTML. This made me laugh as it meant that in the 80's I must have also been a Wordstar professional programmer and a latex programmer in addition to my C and assembly programming.

Tim

-- 
Tim Cross
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