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

joel-garry_at_home.com (Joel Garry) wrote in news:91884734.0212281558.4d867ed3_at_posting.google.com and I quote:

>
> Was so asked for by the user community. I recall being in usenet
> discussions about it. Companies wanted some way to distinguish those
> who are trained, and dba's wanted to be able to show they were
> trained.

The keyword here is "trained". Companies indeed asked for that: a way to make sure the people they were employing as trained (or contracting as such) were indeed trained.

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...

That was the real problem. The bogus qualifications of "instant experts". Not the pre-existing experienced people.

OCP has got NOTHING to do with training. It is a certification process. Means jack about prior training and the quality of such.

In fact it means jack, period. What exactly does OCP buy anyone hiring one? Is an OCP a DBA? Is it a development expert? Is it a design expert?
Or is it indeed as bogus as it gets? I know which one I'd pick...

No, OCP in its current format was never asked for by the user community.

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")...

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...

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