Re: I'm seeking for OCP certification
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 20:15:59 -0700
Message-ID: <1115953905.312269_at_yasure>
Giovanni Azua wrote:
> "DA Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote >
>>Quite simply ...
>>
>>1. Have an exam where the questions make sense and are clearly written.
>>2. Have an exam where the answers are technically correct.
>>3. Have a pass criteria that is in the 90+% range.
>>4. Not allow anyone to pass that is not ALSO technically competent.
>>5. Not allow any for-profit corporation to sell the answers (by lawsuit)
>>6. Make passing the test a function of actual hands-on testing in
>>SQL*Plus.
>>
>>How would you feel in a hospital if the anesthesiologist attending your
>>surgery were certified by a multiple choice test where 70% was
>>considered adequate to pass? How about the pilot on your next airplane
>>flight? Your attorney? Your CPA? An engineer designing a bridge or your
>>house? Your dentist?
>>
>>My point being in no other profession is certification a blood joke
>>designed as a way to generate revenue as opposed to being a methodology
>>for ascertaining competence.
>>
>>I have real-world experience working with medical board and their
>>certification methodologies. Thus the number of incompetent surgeons in
>>the US, and I'm sure it is the same in other countries, is very small.
>>Compare that to the number of grossly incompetent people taking home
>>paychecks as Oracle DBAs and developers with an OCP.
>>--
> > That, Mr. DA Morgan, was an answer! I agree with you 100% :-) > > I think that in general the IT world is infected of this disease, not only > industry > certifications but it happens also with some Universities, I see this every > day ... the exams are the crappiest, everyone passes, even if you are > totally > drunk you can't fail it and I am talking about very respectful Univ. in > Europe (not > including UK, UK is a different story) ... > > Best Regards, > Giovanni
I can't speak for other universities but here's the final I gave my student's last quarter.
On the class website you will find the DDL to create four tables (sales, countries, customers, and products), their primary and referntial constraints, and text files to populate them.
Your assignment:
· Create the tables you will need for importing the text files into
Oracle. Import the data you need to complete this assignment using UTL_FILE.
· Create a table to hold the records of successes and failures from the imports and summaries.
· Write a procedure to summarize (roll-up) sales by month and by product name using the function described below.
· Create a function that will assign the Market to the various countries. The five markets are Europe (incuding the UK), the Middle East (including Turkey), SE Asia, Africa, and the US.
· Create a trigger on the summary table to write a single record to the message table when population of the summary table has been successful.
· Write as SQL query against the summary table to show the product names of the top item in each Market during the year 2000.
· Use the DBMS_PROFILER package to determine which portion of your coded procedures is most responsible for its performance.
· All code (procedures and functions) must be in a single package and must contain appropriate exception handling.
Extra points awarded for the use of native dynamic SQL and/or a ref cursor in your solution.
Notes: The company regularly employs 'shoppers' who buy merchandise and
report back on their experiences. These are not real sales and should
not be counted in the totals.
Exclude this 'shoppers' data (cust_id between 20000 and 24999) from your
summaries.
In my opinion ... those that pass ... demonstrate competence and nothing in the OCP training could possibly prepare someone for the above.
-- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan_at_x.washington.edu (replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)Received on Fri May 13 2005 - 05:15:59 CEST