Is there any industry standard C++ certification exam, like SCJP ?
+9
A:
No, there isn't. C++ is not "owned" by anyone, so there is no recognised body that could provide such a certification.
anon
2010-01-19 10:16:19
I agree that there is no recognized governing body, but is there any provider who takes exam and is well known across industry ???
Unicorn
2010-01-19 10:23:20
There are certainly some that are well known, like Brainbench, but not necessarily for the right reasons. There is no well-respected provider of such tests.
anon
2010-01-19 10:26:36
... and software engineering is an immature and fast-moving discipline, so reputable independent bodies such as universities or professional bodies can't certify it either in the way that they can for "proper jobs" like medicine, engineering, accountancy, architecture, golf course management, -)
Steve Jessop
2010-01-19 14:33:33
@Steve I think professional bodies could do this for programming (I refuse to admit to being an "engineer"), if they existed. If anyone is interested in this, take a look at Steve McConnell's book After The Goldrush.
anon
2010-01-19 14:39:40
I agree it's feasible long term. A prerequisite for doing it, though, would be to mature programming as a discipline, so that people could agree that the qualification asserts necessary (and ideally sufficient) competence for certain purposes. As it stands, it's immature because nobody has much idea what "I'm a professional programmer", or even "I'm a professional C++ programmer" should actually mean, or how to tell whether you're going about it "properly". No shortage of good opinions, but also no acknowledged "discipline". Unlike medicine, you can get away with programming any way you like
Steve Jessop
2010-01-19 14:51:56
... and things like MCSE and SCJP are early attempts to quantify that a bit, by laying out a syllabus for what you "should" know for certain purposes.
Steve Jessop
2010-01-19 14:53:23
A:
Google tells about: http://www.expertrating.com/c++test.asp. Probably, there is no SCJP like exam for C++, since there is no "S" like company behind it, or "M" like company behind the relevant technologies.
Amit
2010-01-19 10:17:41
+1
A:
Read this from Bjarne! Although there aren't any well-known certifications, you can try Brainbench. I tried with C++, but i think it is of some value only if you pass with a Masters. Some employers also apply these tests as a pre-hiring procedure.
HTH
Abhay
2010-01-19 10:18:06
Brainbench is very poor when it comes to C++, as are all other on-line tests of this sort that I've ever come across.
anon
2010-01-19 10:19:34
@Neil: Agreed to a certain extent, But i haven't seen any better either. I believe that tests are useful only to filter out too many job applications. There is no substitute for raw intelligence and a genuine taste for programming; be it any programming language
Abhay
2010-01-19 10:22:25
@Neil: agreed, remembering a definition of something doesn't mean automatically that the person is a great programmer only that he has a good memory.
Anders K.
2010-01-19 10:28:06
I've not seen Brainbench tests -- or at least I don't remember about them -- but in *all* such tests I've reviewed when we were hiring and I was looking for a way to pre-filter candidates, I've seen questions were I was thinking "which of those wrong answers is the one expected?" or even worse, the correct answer was present but considered as wrong. (My guess is that most of the problems are due to an implicit assumption of a Windows target; but we are a Unix shop so that's a bad assumption).
AProgrammer
2010-01-19 12:51:11
@AProgrammer: Yes its true that some of the answers that fall under 'undefined behavior' had answers 'compiler-dependent' ( which applies for 'implementation-defined' which is different from undefined behavior). But I took the C++ test at the highest available level in Brainbench (not the fundamentals one). It definitely wasn't among the 'just knowing the definition' type but more or less it is useful to filter out those 'fake resumes'. However, I have to add that it was nowhere near what the C++ test at the highest certification level must be :-)
Abhay
2010-01-19 14:24:55