The Sun shines out of certified Java programmers
Papers chasing papers
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
The recession gathers apace, jobs are falling like nine pins, we're all doomed. Or maybe we dig in, work hard, brush up on old skills, read up on new stuff, do a bit of studying, sit an exam or two. Here's a couple of papers about IT exams from the Reg library for your perusal.
The Sun certification and team performance: The impact on Application Developers
Vendor qualifications are the last refuge of an incompetent scoundrel, a programmer's ability is in inverse proportion to the number of qualifications on his wall - you've heard the spiel. This paper from IDC, funded by Sun, seeks to persuade you otherwise. IDC travelled the globe to interview three hundred or so App development teams and assess the effect of vendor certification on their work
IDC measured their performance against 10 process metrics. Average performance was "relatively mediocre". Who let those analysts in the building?
On several metrics, IDC detected a gap in performance between teams with low and high concentrations of vendor certifications. The widest gap of all was in the willingness of teams to integrate new technologies. For instance, teams with high concentrations of Java certified programmers were far more likely to intgrate web services into their apps than teams populated by mostly untrained staff.
With the precision that only management consultants and IT analysts are capable of, IDC says: "Having 50 per cent of an application development team certified in Java (Sun certified) can improve performance in application development by more than 40 per cent."
So there's a little fudging in "can" and "more than". But surely it is hard to quarrel with IDC's thesis that "training, and ultimately certification, is critical to improving overall IT performance".
Or is "certification" a red rag to The Reg readers' bull?
ITIL papers are always popular with Reg readers. But pity the poor people who have to take these courses. Reading this paper, from Focus on Training, a UK training company almost induced a panic attack. Learning about best IT practices is one thing, but taking exams in the subject? We'd rather resume the accountancy studies we abandoned a couple of recessions ago.
This paper is an efficient-enough check list of ITIL qualifications, with the emphasis on service management. The authors run ITIL qualification courses, but you knew that already. ®
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COMMENTS
@Niall -- one gotcha to worry about with that...
If you want your code to be portable, you shouldn't build in any dependencies that could gum up the works for your users. I don't mean only making sure your file separators aren't windows-specific (as Boris mentioned), I mean making sure all of the following are true:
1) Your "code level" in your project preferences is set to a baseline that will work with your entire user population -- in my agency I've standardized on J2SE 1.5 because many of our users will have Macs and many of those are older models with an older OS/X (1.5 standard, no 1.6 available). You also have to make sure you've got a J2SE 1.5 JDK installed, and set it as the preferred compiler for your project or when users try to run your app older JREs will reject the libraries in your JAR file (they won't match the expected versions, although I don't remember the actual error text).
2) You make sure you don't use anything that was introduced after your targeted JDK was released. For example, in NetBeans, I can't use the beautiful new Free Design layout, I have to go old school. I don't mind, it's a project requirement. Anyway, Nimbus would be great for a techie audience, because they're probably bleeding edge with respect to JDK/JRE, but if you have to support the general public, you should stick to 1.5.
The best way to ensure #2 is to use the J2SE reference pages for your targeted JRE when you're working with code. Assume that if it's not in the reference pages, it's not available to that project.
Thanks to backward compatibility, people who DO use modern JREs will be able to work with your software without difficulties.
It's all about setting a baseline, you know?
@Phil/Borris/Java Desktop
You've possibly seen it but if not check out the Nimbus look and feel in Java 6 update 10 and later. It really makes Java GUI apps slick, slicker than any other apps I've seen.
Also FYI if on Ubuntu you can install a Nimbus theme for normal GTK apps too.
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