How much does certification help?

[Dan Wayland]

If you have experience and a degree, how useful is Sun Certification in a job search? I've heard everything from useless -> really sets you apart.

[Mark Herschberg]

Stop! Wait!
Before we rehash this, please do a search in this forum under "certification" and "SCJP" It's been discussed to death--repeatedly.

--Mark
[This message has been edited by Mark Herschberg (edited July 19, 2001).]

[Tony Alicea]

Yeah! What Mark said!

[steb]

You are right, it's somewhere between (useless) <-> (gets you to an interview). Today, with all those jobless Java programmers with 4+ years of expereience wandering around, the value of Java certification quickly diminshes. I think that Sun realizes this, and they will come out with some recertification scheme, to retire old titles and exams, and to install new ones which ought to be harder to pass to reduce the number of certified folks.
And, once current exams gets phased out, the old SCJP, SCJD and SCJA will become not certified, but certifiable

[Mark Herschberg]

"steb",
The Java Ranch has thousands of visitors every week, many with surprisingly similar names. To avoid confusion we have a naming convention, described at http://www.javaranch.com/name.jsp . We require names to have at least two words, separated by a space, and strongly recommend that you use your full real name. Please log in again with a new name which meets the requirements.
Thanks.
--Mark

[Christophe Lee]

congratulations Mark, you've effectively stifled all conversation in this forum. Now, every time I post, I am frozen by fear of "rehashing" old topics. Oh wait, maybe I should first go do a search for "stifle Mark conversation"...

[Mark Herschberg]

Originally posted by Christophe Lee:
congratulations Mark, you've effectively stifled all conversation in this forum. Now, every time I post, I am frozen by fear of "rehashing" old topics. Oh wait, maybe I should first go do a search for "stifle Mark conversation"...

I'm not sure if that is just good natured sarcasm, or a complaint, so I'll treat it as the latter.
1) I don't want too discourage discussion, but I would also hate to see every other topic be about "Future of Java" or "Is certification useful."
2) We have archives, use 'em. Why bother retyping the same info?
3) If you do have something new to add, or feel like posting anyway, why not continue the previous thread, instead of starting a new one? Either continue in the same thread, or start a new thread, but reference the last one, and put a note at the end of the last one saying you're continuing further discusson in the new thread.
4) Finally (and maybe this wasn't clear because I'm a bartender, if so, sorry), this is not a mandate, just my $.02 Post if you'd like; it's a free website :-) I just want to make people aware that the information they wnat may already exist.

--Mark

[Christophe Lee]

Hi Mark,
I've only been on JavaRanch for a relatively short time and already, I've seen many redundant posts. I'd agree with you that many of those questions could be easily answered by simply searching the archives.
However, to demand a stop to replies is counter productive.
Perhaps someone has something new to add but does not reply because of your warning. Or perhaps a search was conducted and a need for more up to date information is required. In any circumstance, I think to stop conversation isn't necessary. You can simply post a link and say "This topic has been discussed <link>here</link> also."
This way, people with something new to add can post without feeling like they've violated the 11th commandment.
Regards,
Chris

[Mark Herschberg]

If ou read my posts, I never say "don't post," I just point out that people should first do a search. But, again, maybe that's not clear and people are taking it as a directive. In any event, I simply encourage people to "post smartly" and look before the post.
(As a side note, I've also answered probably half a deozen questions on this site by simply doing a Google search on a couple key words.)

--Mark

PS I may also be especially sensative to this, as there was a period in the late spring when we had a new "java is dead" thread started every few days. :-)
[This message has been edited by Mark Herschberg (edited July 26, 2001).]