What are the good certifications for Perl developers?

Question

Just want to know, is there any good Perl programming certifications (Perl 5) available which also covers object oriented Perl.

Answer 1

Hi

Well I don't think that Perl certification is a very popular idea in the community. Here is some discussion on Perl Monks that also links to a lot of prior discussion on the topic.

Are potential employers asking for certification? If so, don't the list those certificates that they recognise?

I would suggest that just getting in and learning it, writing some code to show employers and joining in the community (bug reports, discussions, patches, CPAN contributions) when you're ready would be the best way to show your Perl skills.

If you really need some kind of certificate, the only one I know of is Brainbench... Can't personally vouch for it though, I'm not certified... (I couldn't make a nice link to the Perl tests as it seems to submit via POST... just enter Perl into the search box.)

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

First of all, certs depend on the country.

I'm not aware of any Perl software development certifications in USA, although it's plausible some of the system administration certs (especially in Linux land) might include a certain amount of elementary Perl.

The closest that comes to it is attending a semi-"official" Perl training provided by one of Perl luminaries, e.g. Stonehenge Consulting. I was fortunate enough to start off my Perl education by attending Randal Schwartz's class, and it was a great experience; yet, even given that, with all due respect to Mr. JAPH, I would not for a second consider merely passing Randal's Perl training as a qualification on which I'd base a hiring decision.

On the other hand, showing Perl knowledge/experience by having a CPAN module (or at least contributing to one), or actively answering on StackOverflow Perl tag, would be a big plus.

Answer 3

I like this one.

(Yes, I think that accurately sums up the Perl community feeling toward certification.)

Answer 4

Seriously, the only certification that's worth a damn is a list of projects you've worked on that you can point to. Free/Open Source projects and, in particular, CPAN distributions are ideal for this.

More general development community involvement (like, say, answering questions on StackOverflow) may also help some, depending on who you're trying to work with, but is mostly only recognized by people who are already a part of the dev community themselves.

Answer 5

I think taking part in open source project and activity on CPAN is the best certification one can quote or have in Perl community. I would suggest to join some #IRC of active projects i.e Padre, meet with experts, try to work on some open tickets and you are done and there after you will not think about certification.