Re: AS/400 RPG Certification Test

Recently we have been dealing with some outside programmers to speed up
some projects.  They have been working with our most junior programmer
(<3 months RPG).  One thing I have noticed is that on several occasions
they have told him that "you can't do that" or "it doesn't work that
way"  Of course since he doesn't know that he can't do that he goes to
the manual (online) and figures out how to do things.  Too often "you
CAN do that" and "it DOES work that way"

These are very good programmers with a lot of experience who would ace
(if they haven't already) the certification test.  However they are not
up to date on the latest improvements.  

Certification should be ongoing and require knowlege of the
improvements.

In this case the "senior" programmer was testing the bit pattern of each
field to see if the dup key was hit and then turning on an indicator (1
per field).  Despite being told it wouldn't work The "junior" programmer
just used the dup key indicator in SDA !

Maybe if the test could be broken down into segments like : operations,
old style RPG, RPG IV, SDA, SEU, DB2, new features, etc. This could give
a better reading on an indivduals skill set.  

For example give a rating on each set and require passing on 5 out of 7
for certification.  Or have individual certs. This would allow a
prospective employer to look at a programmer's cert and say well you
don't know much about SEU or operations but that's ok because we use
code400 and you will not be doing any operations.

Once certified the "new features" portion would be valid for a limited
time only and need to be retaken as IBM adds features to the OS.  This
could be done online at little or no cost (even if you cheat you will
end up learning the new features!)
 

This is probably going too far but it would provide for a meaningful
certification process

John Hall
Home Sales Co.
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