Certification

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

I was proficient at LabVIEW until last Thursday

Why should Certifications expire?

 

See my Idea HERE.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Richard






0 Kudos
Message 1 of 16
(8,473 Views)

While I agree that recertification kind be a pain in the butt I also see value in them expiring. Let's say you were certifricied on LabVIEW 8.0 and since them you haven't touched LabVIEW. If nothing else recertification shows continued involvement with the tehnology, not just a mere check at some point in the past. Granted, you may not be experienced with the latest and greatest version but if you are still active the recertification shouldn't be too bad. I haven't really touched C or C++ in years. I am very rusty at this point and it would not be fair to claim I still am at the top of my game working with it.

 

Hopefully NI will role out the rewards program they were piloting which allows you other methods to get recertified besides simply taking the test.



Mark Yedinak
Certified LabVIEW Architect
LabVIEW Champion

"Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
Message 2 of 16
(8,463 Views)

Well as I am due for a recert, AGAIN, I'll put in my two cents worth. The exams are flawed, with frequently ambiguous questions with multiple possible "correct" answers, only one of which will get you points. A written, multiple choice, test does not in anyway accurately demonstrate real ability in programming in the language. As to someone who may or may not be up on the latest version, if I didn't dabble in the Beta program (dabble as I am rarely able to give it the attention I would like) and in particular try out new features, I might not get an opportunity for quite a while in the real world. Most of my customers are using versions that they have felt were stable, are usually reluctant to upgrade to the latest. If a project comes alone where I'm asked to develop a program in LabVIEW at a customer that hasn't a heavy preexisting set of programs, I am sometimes able to use the newer version, but I just spent 2 years developing in 8.5, since my last recert, so I don't have a lot of time in '10 or '11. Am I reasonably competent in LabVIEW? I think so. Do I know all the interesting features in LabVIEW cold? Nope. Could I use them efficiently in a program? Probably, after a quick spin up.

Putnam
Certified LabVIEW Developer

Senior Test Engineer North Shore Technology, Inc.
Currently using LV 2012-LabVIEW 2018, RT8.5


LabVIEW Champion



Message 3 of 16
(8,460 Views)

I have to disagree with you... If NI certifies you on LV 2010, clients may be confused and understand that you are not proeficient with LV 2011 or later...

 

Maybe the certification should last longer than 2 years, or may be easier to maintain =>maybe giving presentations on local events (NI Days/Developer days...) I think this has already been discussed but I really like the idea!

Rodéric L
Certified LabVIEW Architect
Message 4 of 16
(8,416 Views)

I'm in agreement with Putnam.

 

Even if you're still using LV 8.5 (I also have a client who hasn't upgraded since then, hence I still use it as well), you can still sit down with LV2011 and write a very good program, using best practices, provided that you are a competent programmer.  The version of LV you're using isn't nearly as important as your architectural approach, programming style, documentation habits, etc.  It is nonsense to say that one is not competent to program in LV2011 if one is competent with LV8.5.  Either you are a competent LV programmer, or you aren't.

 

The CLD is a good test, in my opinion, which requires the test taker to demonstrate that he/she does, indeed, show architectural skills, good programming style, good documentation habits, etc.  The question, "Does this person exhibit the necessary traits to be considered a LabVIEW programmer with a certain level of competency which entitles him/her to be called a certified developer?" can be fairly well answered based on his/her performance on the CLD.

 

The CLD-R is, by contrast, not a good test if the purpose is to determine whether or not the test taker is a competent LabVIEW programmer.  As Putnam stated, the questions are ambiguous (Which answer is "more correct"?  Say what?  By definition, the answer to a question phrased that way is subjective, which has absolutely no place on a professional certification exam), you don't get to see your test results after you finish, and the test does not require the demonstration of the things that are important -- namely, architecture, style, and documentation.  It's great if you know how LabVIEW stores various datatypes in memory, but in no way does that knowledge provide a basis for an accurate assessment of your competency.

 

If recertification is required, it should be at > 2-year intervals and the test should be functional, just like the CLD.  Sit down and write a program to a set of specifications.  If the pushback to that idea is, "We already know you can do that", then tell me again why recertification is required??

 

My two cents!  Smiley Happy

Message 5 of 16
(8,402 Views)

Very well said DianeS.

 

It is interesting that (the last time I checked) a full third of the Kudos on the Idea were from NI employees. Seems a few of them are on board.

 

Richard






0 Kudos
Message 6 of 16
(8,395 Views)

I agree with Putnam as well about the CLD (and CLA) tests - practical use of the toolset. I also agree about the CLD-R exam not being at all practical but instead a trivia test.

 

To make a recertification be practical but still not being a full do-over, how about something more like performing a design review? Maybe grading a CLD test to see if you catch problems and can recommend solutions for them?

 

Just a thought. . .

 

Bob Y.

 

 

0 Kudos
Message 7 of 16
(8,379 Views)

Another beef I have with the two year recert CLD-R is that until very recently (since my last recert) I had to basically take at least a half a day off from work (which in my case is billed by the hour) to travel approximately 100 miles to the nearest testing facility. It isn't that I live in the boondocks, I'm in the suburbs of a small city with a major university as well as a number of smaller colleges, with a few major corporations who are heavily invested in LabVIEW. What was particularly annoying was to see that at least one test site was in a very small community, without major industry or academia, so if it could be justified why not one nearer? So, ultimately, the cost to recert for me has been very expensive, on top of the actual exam cost, requiring hundreds of mile of travel, highway tolls and in one case, annoying my then current customer by missing a meeting. I don't want to annoy customers! For the practical exams (CLD/CLA), I will have to still travel to the testing site a 100 miles away (ironically located at my company's competitor's office), the other testing sites are only set up for the online, multiple guess tests.

 

I won't even get into the question of whether any of the exams can actually provide an accurate metric of whether one is able to actually able to develop a useful program for a larger percentage of the typical LabVIEW "tasks". Knowing how to develop a client/server, state machine based program is all well and good, but in my 18+ years of programming in LabVIEW the majority of the programs have had some DAQ/Hardware interaction, which is the iceberg under the water in my opinion.

 

Putnam
Certified LabVIEW Developer

Senior Test Engineer North Shore Technology, Inc.
Currently using LV 2012-LabVIEW 2018, RT8.5


LabVIEW Champion



Message 8 of 16
(8,357 Views)

To be fair, you having to travel 100 plus miles to take an exam is the fault of the certification.

 

The question is whether you actually need the to be certified to do your job. Being self employed with 18 plus year experience using LabVIEW has this affected you obtaining work?

 

 

Regards
Ray Farmer
0 Kudos
Message 9 of 16
(8,355 Views)

@LV_Pro wrote:

I won't even get into the question of whether any of the exams can actually provide an accurate metric of whether one is able to actually able to develop a useful program for a larger percentage of the typical LabVIEW "tasks". Knowing how to develop a client/server, state machine based program is all well and good, but in my 18+ years of programming in LabVIEW the majority of the programs have had some DAQ/Hardware interaction, which is the iceberg under the water in my opinion.

 


I would disagree with this since I have a slightly different perspective. In the current state of affairs DAQ is a major aspect of LabVIEW programming. However, I see this as a pitfall for NI and LabVIEW. LV can be so much more if it were marketed and viewed as a generic programming language. With this in mind demonstration of solid programming design patterns and architectures is far more beneficial since these are much more universal skills which are still required when using DAQ. However, DAQ skills are not a necessity of programming in general.

 

LV is in a position today that it can easily become the dominant programming language. The graphical nature of the language is a better way to represent logic. Today's technology is becoming much more graphical and LV is much better suited for touch screen interfaces (from a development point of view) than any traditional text based programming language. Just look at the nice little demo at this year's NI Week. I would love to see NI take that leap to promote LV the next generation programming language rather than keeping it in the niche of test and measurement.



Mark Yedinak
Certified LabVIEW Architect
LabVIEW Champion

"Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
Message 10 of 16
(8,352 Views)