RE: /400 skills test

["Nathan M. Andelin" <nathanma@xxxxxxxxx>]

Some of us do poorly on skills tests.  Ok, I confess, a skills test would
probably be my downfall.  But, on the other hand, my software development
career has been an 18 year success story.

Why do I lack luster during a skills test?  Maybe its because my background
is diverse.  MVS/XA, DOS, Windows, OS/400, and AIX.  In just the past few
years I've coded substantially in ILE/RPG, C, Java, Delphi, Visual Basic,
and Visual Foxpro.  Its been too big a challenge for me to memorize the
details of each development environment.

A few keys to successful software are:

-an understanding of the people and industry you write for
-the ability and drive to solve problems
-the ability to produce long lasting solutions

How do you measure abilities like that in a skills test?  By its very
nature, a skills test rewards you for having a quick solution to a very
narrowly scoped problem.  That may be appropriate for help desk personnel.
How is it relevant to real life?



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