SL Certification

Would a certifying "authority" have any more insight into the server code?
Even things like whether multiple listeners or one listener plus if/else cause less lag cannot be decided by the community as there is no official word on the matter and the server code is not available for scrutiny.

I think LSL as a language is too volatile to even begin certification.
Too many hacks need to be used for everyday scripts.
Too many things become broken with each update.
The language is too simplistic to have more than a couple of ways of doing any specific thing, which makes it near impossible to eliminate copy/paste submissions.


Getting the thing to work isn't a measure enough?
Certification is only good as a measure of achievement for the scripts required as part of that certification. If you create something not covered by the certificate, is there any less achievement?

Hiya, folks. Thanks for all of your great feedback. In response to some of your questions, we have added a section to the wiki, "Frequently Asked Questions." Please check it out and let us know what you think!
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SL_Certification

Many thanks for responding Heretic; as a tool for those wishing to hire/be hired it makes some sense.

I just read the wiki and one of the last "resident" signups says "we have been in the works with this since Nov 06 and is more than 50% done". This means to me by asking for our input to shape it you are only asking for our thoughts so you can hopefully mitigate bad press problems upon release as its already a done deal.

One of the things the bothers me in particular is because I am just now really spending any time building. I dont have tons of hours to spend here but I dont think my creations are worse than many others I have seen. I am concernerd that 1) I will have to pay for the cert 2) I Will have to pay for classrom instuction 3) I will have to spend time I dont have and 4)If I dont I will lose a substantial amount of the small $L income I make from sales of builds. Since most things in SL sell for what amounts to pennies, I really dont want to have to go throught this much effort just to keep making those pennies or even nickles, assmuing I can charge more. And Isnt that the next thing? Inflation caused by rising prices due to cert costs and the ability to assume more worth because of certification? Isnt that one of the real goals here?

Im joining in the process, and will go for certifciation as it appears i have no choice, but if I came in to this world a little later I would be really turned off that I would not be able to work my way up by teaching myself, not having to pay for it. All this but no zoning, go figure...

BTW when are Realtors going to require certification? I think that would be a popular way to introduce the program. You couldve hooked a lot more ppl that way.

Being that they are looking for a third party to do the testing, I imagine it will be costly to attain sufficient certifications for any seasoned professional who is already well-versed in the workings of SL. Generally, testing centers charge quite a premium for courses or even just taking a stupid exam. One place I looked at wanted several hundred to several THOUSAND dollars (yes, US$, not L$) to take an exam to a suite of exams for MCSE certification. That was just for the tests. Classes, workbooks, etc were extra.

Certification is a racket. Maybe it has some value in principle, but the reality is that it is a way to game the system.

Fortunately, the IT crash back in 2001-2002 washed out a lot of IT consultant wannabees with nothing more than their certifications to show for their IT knowledge.

I prove myself to new customers with references and results. No certification in the universe can provide anything close to that in terms of completeness and accuracy.

I think time would be better spent providing a means to help folks build and display a portfolio of work and maintaining a feedback system.

Winter, I've met you, I'll vouch that you are certifiable......

No cheese for YOU!

Notice how they dont actually answer the question?

As has been previously posted by various people, myself included, I doubt any external certification organisation will be willing to do this for free.

Another question, which I dont think has been asked, is how specialisations will be handled. There are a number of incredibly gifted scripters in SL who specialise in only one area, vehicles, weapons or particle effects for example. Will they fail certification just because they dont want to know how to torture a prim until it looks like a map of texas?

As long as not being certified does not prevent me from scripting as and when I want, I see no gain in obtaining it.

I think your posts in "scripting tips" are certification enough Newgate

ROFL. Well as long as they dont mark me down for spelling.

I think it would create an elitist atmosphere. I think we should focus more on getting the language to actually function like a normal language for this decade before we start a Certification process.
I think your efforts would be better spent to create and advertise yet another Scriptors group with enrollment based on a test. Of course I said "better spent", not "best spent"

I am strongly against an official certification process.

This would be definately useful, and also encourage new users / businesses to adopt SL who need a pool of available people they actually ... could go to.

It also will help bring maturity to the language as a whole...

It was mentioned that each scripter has a different way of doing things, perhaps along with this certification wiki, will come a set of patterns coders could draw from - to solve common problems - instead of re-inventing the wheel, but instead work together to create the BEST wheel, then all use it.

-- over all, I feel this is a positive step forward

Thanks for the FAQ response on the wiki Heretic. And as it seems LL won't be making it compulsory - its still no thanks. If others want it then I don't really care. Have no interest in particles, weapons, vehicles or a zillion other things. I'll continue to script what I need for my builds thats it thats all

I feel that LL's time would be far better spent by documenting the frigging language!

The existing LL documentation for LSL should be a huge embarrassment to LL. It's shoddy, amateurish, incomplete, and pathetic. Instead of documentation on what functions are supposed to do and designed to do and guaranteed to do, we have to test willy nilly and write code based on the results of testing.

As anyone who's studied serious software engineering knows, writing to results of tests rather than specifically intended behavior is a very risky business.

Any attempt at "certification" in such a 3rd-class environment is ludicrous. The correct certification process would involve one question and response:

Q) Is LSL suitable for reliable, maintainable, professional quality coding?
A) No, because it's insufficiently documented!

Or how about this one:

Q) What does LSL function llXxxx() do?
A) Well, I know what it does TODAY, but I have no idea what it will do TOMORROW, because there is no statement of what it is actually supposed to do.

Of course, we make do (and do well) because it's the only game in town.

Seriously, LL should be taken to task for this shoddy effort on their part. LSL is an excellent language! Too bad it's so seriously marred by its documentation. If an employee of mine turned in such documentation even for an in-house API, I'd let him or her find work elsewhere.

Surely everyone realizes that any proposed certification effort would obviously include documentation? Not just the LSL language, its API, but best practices, etc.?

From this perspective alone I see the certification effort is already worthwhile.

-peekay

Yes, Peekay, but one usually STARTS with good documentation, THEN considers certification.

Here, they are FIRST considering certification, THEN getting around to good documentation, using certification as a driver.

That all means that the documentation will be good enough for their certification purposes, and woefully inadequate for actual real-world use.

Sorry, I don't quite see the value proposition ending up as a net positive in this case.

As I see it, the real point behind certification would not be to point at someone and say "there's a better scripter" or even for the scripter to be able to charge more for services. The true point behind certification should be to qualify someone to teach scripting skills to others. Thereby, with an open source project such as LSL, we achieve better documentation due to the certified scripters creating the documentation.

well i haven't yet read the certification wiki (or explored what kind of certification you need to edit the certification wiki), but, the concept of certification seems potentially useful. If it were necessary, I suspect residents would already have created a certification program. I think some resident run scripting schools do provide some level of certification. Certification that a resident has basic scripting knowledge could prevent fraud and prevent charging other residents ridiculously high prices for poorly crafted scripts.

Some thoughts:
Private in world existing schools should be able to provide linden level certification.
Private schools should be able to charge for certification classes, but, public classes/exams should also offer certification for free, particularly if certification provides some linden conferred benefit.
Ideally, certification exams should involve (or be based entirely upon) a performance/practice exam where a canditate is required to create some script from scratch in a given amount of time similar to the driver's test, bar performance exam, or medical exam.
Certification Examiners should be comprised of at least 50% non-linden residents.

It does strike me as odd that LL would wish to step away from regulating the affiars of residents, allowing the residents to regulate their own affairs, yet, at the same time, apparently attempt to regulate the quality of scripting services. LL doesn't have the time to fairly adjudicate AR's. Perhaps Lindens would be better off encouraging an existing school to establish and operate the certification process than attempting to do it themselves. Providing Linden level certification/quasi-governmental functions encourages residents to resist forming their own governments and to overly rely on Lindens doing their governing for them.

As we mentioned in the wiki, we want Residents to help us with these issues. You ask how specialization will be handled. Well, that's the purpose of the wiki. We want Residents to help us develop criteria, help us determine specialty.

With regard to, "Notice how they dont actually answer the question?" Newgate, we don't have a number of answers to various tough questions. We are in the beginning stages here, calling on Residents to help us create a system of certification that benefits the entire SL community. We are totally open to any suggestions you might have. As our response to the following question "Who will certify" in the wiki states, "at this time, the only answer we can give is "Not Linden Lab." And we are fully committed to working with Residents in order to determine the best course of action in this regard. As we stated on numerous occasions in the wiki, we feel that impartiality ought to be a primary concern with regard to "who" certifies, which is one reason why we won't be taking on that task.

Thanks for your feedback and keep it comin'!

This has been a hot topic over at the "Second Citizen" Forums. Since there seems to be a direct line to LL here, I thought it might be useful to raise a question that arose in the SC discussion. I'll note in passing that it was not I who was astute enough to see this issue.

Q: *Who* will be certified? The avatar, or the person behind the avatar?

If the AV, what value will certification hold for a client? The AV could have had anyone at the keyboard throughout the certification process (assuming is is done in-world), and can have anyone at the keyboard when the project agreement is struck and work commenced.

If the person, how will a potential client know that AV "X" is being run by certified person "Y"? What of people who currently chose to keep their RL status private in SL?

I hope LL devises the method to make certification the distinguished recognition. Otherwise, it becomes just another line on a resume, for the reader to determine its merit. And, many times, a certification that cost big money or a long time was paid by someone other than the bearer and has no revelance on their actual abilities when pertained to their actual experience. In otherwords, will we see certified builders and scripters with no experience, the entry level person that is risk to anyone who wishes to hire their services? My resume consists of what I have already built. And as others have said, and I translate, there is no substitute for experience, and a piece of paper is a piece of paper, nothing more, even if it is only digital. Do not mistake me, I support this new program and wish it goes well!

Unless you have webcam, you won't know whether your certified developer is building your island or whether they paid a minion to log on their building account.

Even with a webcam, it's possible to have someone else in charge of your keyboard while you sit and stare into space.

The only way to guarantee a person is the holder of the certificate is to hold exams in RL, requiring some form of hard to fake photo ID, and for customers to also meet the scripter in RL and also require the same ID.
Not something that is likely to happen.

that's pretty much what it would be, a line on a resume. not saying that's bad. a certification is just one part of a healthy, balanced breakfast. you still have to know the ins and outs of working, salesmanship, interpreting client requests, knowing how to separate your personal and professional life, etc etc. a certification is just a badge that says you know the tools.

i'm sure there will be a lot of talented developers that don't get them.

btw heretic, are group invites being sent to everyone on the list on the wiki? just wondering, thanks!

I'll believe it when I see it. I suspect they'll write tutorial and guidance material (actually, WE will do that, and they'll bless it or change it). If they actually document LSL that would be great but I'll be amazed if they do.