paul.knibbs (9/10/2013)
Frankly, it seems to me that having the company which is selling the software also providing the certifications for that software is a conflict of interest which is never going to come out well. We need to have some sort of large, well-recognised third-party certification to get some trust back in the system, but I have no idea what the chances of *that* happening are.
^^ This right here. As long as there is a chance of unclear motivations in handing out those certifications, they'll never be fully trusted.
To Steve's question, "The actual syntax might be different, but are we hiring people that remember syntax or accomplish tasks?" the answer has to be tasks. I've taken various development certification tests in the past and all they proved was that I could tell you how the compiler worked, not that I could actually write a program that worked. Until there's a certification that proves that (and I thought the MCM with the lab tests did a decent job of that), I'm skeptical about the depth of someone's knowledge when I see a certification on their resume.