Re: AS/400 RPG Certification Test

I took the test and passed.  I believe some of the questions/samples were
tricky and dated, but covered techniques you need to know if you are going
to maintain programs that were developed in the 80s and early 90s.

A few more questions would have been nice, since one wrong answer could
bring down your score quickly.

Bob Luebbe
CONNECTIONS 2000
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon.Paris@halinfo.it <Jon.Paris@halinfo.it>
To: midrange-l@midrange.com <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Date: Tuesday, September 08, 1998 3:41 PM
Subject: AS/400 RPG Certification Test


>Thought I'd add a couple of words on this topic since I was one of the
>IBMers involved in initiating this particular test.  Also I can now offer
>my "undiluted" opinions <vbg>
>
>1) This was intended to be the _first_ of a series of tests.  Since a
>simple multiple choice "what do you know" test is the easiest to establish
>and mark, that was the first one.  The intent was that if there was
>sufficient interest in this test then follow-on tests would be developed
>which would have the more practical "what can you do" flavor that most here
>seem to want.  I don't know what the plans are for this yet.
>
>2) The questions may be "tricky" in places, but there was _never_ any
>attempt to fool, only to examine knowledge in places where the test
>designers felt mistakes were commonly made.
>
>3) The tests were not designed by IBMers for the most part, but by end
>users.  In fact by some of the people on this list.  I leave it to them to
>decide whether to reveal themselves.
>
>4) As we found when designing RPG IV, in-depth user involvement often
>serves only to highlight the fact that two users rarely agree with one
>another.  It's hardly surprising that opinions on the test vary widely.
>Those who actively participated in the development of this test probably
>hold different views form those who didn't - had the roles been reversed so
>would the complaints have been !!
>
>5) Emphasis on RPG IV.  You betcha.  I was _very_ much in favor of this.  I
>don't think MS offer much in the way in Win 3.1. certification any more (or
>other similar "old" topics) - even though _many_ people still use it.  The
>test was designed to test knowledge of RPG and (for the most part) you
>wouldn't need to know much more about RPG IV than what you read in
>Midrange, News/400, or whatever.  In my mind certification is to do with
>what you will be doing in the future, not your past.  I would not want to
>hire any RPG programmer who could not answer the RPG IV questions.  To me
>that would simply demonstrate that they had no interest in professional
>development and were content to go on doing things the old way.  I
>certainly would want to know that if I begin to switch to RPG IV that my
>new hires can help along the road.  If much of your coding is still in RPG
>III, that's sad - but not a reason to drag the testing down to the lowest
>denominator.  Or do we want RPG II testing included?
>
>
>
>
>
>Jon.Paris@halinfo.it
>
>
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