Is there a C certificate?

L

Leo

Dear All,

I am wondering if there is any programming certificate in C which can
prove somebody's C skills.

I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C questions
which I was not prepared well. To avoid such questions in the future job
interview, I hope to take some kind of C certificate. But I don't know
if there is one.

Thank you very much.
 
M

Michael Mair

Leo said:
Dear All,

I am wondering if there is any programming certificate in C which can
prove somebody's C skills.

I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C questions
which I was not prepared well. To avoid such questions in the future job
interview, I hope to take some kind of C certificate. But I don't know
if there is one.

AFAIK, none that really says much.
Learn C, write a couple of outstanding programs in C and put
the source up on your homepage. Refer people asking for your
C skills to this homepage.

If you do not want to work for being able to prove your C
skills, then consider to admit that you have none. This avoids
the awkwardness of other people trying to elicit traces of C
knowledge from you.

-Michael
 
N

Nelu

Dear All,
I am wondering if there is any programming certificate in C which can
prove somebody's C skills.
There is K&R and other books to learn from.
I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C questions
which I was not prepared well. To avoid such questions in the future job
interview, I hope to take some kind of C certificate. But I don't know
if there is one.
Learning C will help you answer questions about C. A certificate
may not be the answer. I know people that have different certificates but
don't know much anyway. You should learn how to answer the questions
not how to avoid them :). This being said, I have no clue if there are
specific tests for C certification but, if there are, someone will
undoubtetly answer. Stick around.
 
D

Default User

Leo said:
Dear All,

I am wondering if there is any programming certificate in C which can
prove somebody's C skills.

I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C
questions which I was not prepared well. To avoid such questions in
the future job interview, I hope to take some kind of C certificate.
But I don't know if there is one.


"We'd like to ask you a few questions to test your C knowledge."

"No need, I have a C Certificate!"

"Just the same . . ."


You're better off becoming proficient in the language. That means
things like reading and answering the questions textbook, and writing
programs. And more programs. Was writing programs mentioned? Yeah, do
that.



Brian
 
J

James T. Sprinkle \(The Grue\)

There is no certificate that can prove your skills better than actual
experience.

The Grue
 
M

Mike Wahler

Leo said:
Dear All,

I am wondering if there is any programming certificate in C which can
prove somebody's C skills.

I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C questions
which I was not prepared well. To avoid such questions in the future job
interview, I hope to take some kind of C certificate.

Possession of such a certificate is not going to stop
anyone from asking questions. Nor should it.

They're asking these questions in order to determine
your knowledge. If you want to show them that you
have the desired knowledge, you first need to acquire
that knowledge. Any 'certificate' or other document
that might arise from this is imo just a 'side effect'.
But I don't know if there is one.

If you want a job writing C, you need to learn C.
So learn it. Do it at a school or on your own
or with a tutor, etc. Then you'll know it, and
will be able to answer interview questions.

-Mike
 
C

Chuck F.

Leo said:
I am wondering if there is any programming certificate in C
which can prove somebody's C skills.

I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C
questions which I was not prepared well. To avoid such questions
in the future job interview, I hope to take some kind of C
certificate. But I don't know if there is one.

Buy K&R, read it, do all the exercises, and lurk here. Then you
will be well prepared.

--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
More details at: <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/>
 
S

slebetman

Leo said:
Dear All,

I am wondering if there is any programming certificate in C which can
prove somebody's C skills.

Yes, there is. It is called a degree, either Computer Science or
Electronic Engineering (Computing). Although these days some CS schools
are turning to 100% Java so in a few years even a degree won't be able
to 'prove' that you can do C. And you better hope the interviewer is
not a regular here at comp.lang.c since neither a degree or 10 years of
experience coding C impress them much.
I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C questions
which I was not prepared well.

In which case you should and must also fail any form of C
'certification' out there.
To avoid such questions in the future job
interview, I hope to take some kind of C certificate.

I have an engineering degree and 6+ years of professional, industrial
experience coding C (10 years if you want to include my academic years)
and I still get asked such questions. What makes you think a
'certificate' will help you here? And when you get the job, and your
boss dumps a 200000 line C program to you asking you to add a new
client requested feature how do you expect to 'fake' it (this happened
to me, fresh out of college with 0 years professional experience)?
 
R

Richard Heathfield

(e-mail address removed) said:
Yes, there is. It is called a degree, either Computer Science or
Electronic Engineering (Computing).

Yeah, right. A few years - er, actually it was almost a decade ago, I was
given the task of getting some CS graduate trainees up to speed on the
systems I was working on at the time (C with DB2). All of them had honours
degrees. All of them had only been hired in the first place because their
courses had had a great deal of C content.

Yep, you guessed it - the first thing I had to do was teach them C.
 
P

Prafulla Harpanhalli

Leo said:
Dear All,

I am wondering if there is any programming certificate in C which can
prove somebody's C skills.

I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C questions
which I was not prepared well. To avoid such questions in the future job
interview, I hope to take some kind of C certificate. But I don't know
if there is one.

Thank you very much.

If you can carefully search "Expert C programming" by Peter Van Der
Linden, you will find one certificate. But then, the author expects the
reader to crack some puzzels before you can *certify yourself* :)
 
K

Keith Thompson

Chris Hills said:
Though K&R 1 or 2 are both well out of date now and no much use for some
areas of programming.

K&R1 is out of date, but K&R2 is a good tutorial (and a decent
reference) on the language as defined by the C90 standard. It doesn't
cover C99, but then most implementations don't either (though support
of some features such as long long is very common).

K&R2 supplemented with some additional material on C99 and/or on
whatever system-specific extensions you need to know about should give
you a good understanding of the language.
 
S

slebetman

Richard said:
(e-mail address removed) said:


Yeah, right. A few years - er, actually it was almost a decade ago, I was
given the task of getting some CS graduate trainees up to speed on the
systems I was working on at the time (C with DB2). All of them had honours
degrees. All of them had only been hired in the first place because their
courses had had a great deal of C content.

Yep, you guessed it - the first thing I had to do was teach them C.

Excellent example of my advice: better hope the interviewer is not a
regular here at comp.lang.c since neither a degree or 10 years of
experience coding C impress them much.

If you look around at comp.lang.c you'll find that people with years of
experience programming C for a living sometimes gets it wrong, an
honors degree means nothing to these people. A 'certificate' will mean
even less.

What people want to see is not what you have, but what you can do. So
regardless of degrees, certificates or experience interviewers will
always ask you to demonstrate the ability to code (though sometimes the
questions themselves illustrates the interviewer's lack of
understanding of C, sometimes invoking UB and ask you what the output
will be).

Some types of skill, such as human resource management, are impractical
to demonstrate in an interview. So a degree/diploma/certificate is
often used to judge such a skill. But coding and design
(hardware/software) can easily be demonstrated on a sheet (or several
sheets) of A4 paper. This is why interviewers will always ask such
questions. The degree/diploma/certificate you have is useful only in
getting you the interview. Once in front of the interviewer such
qualifications are meaningless.
 
N

Nelu

Though K&R 1 or 2 are both well out of date now and no much use for some
areas of programming.
I still think that K&R is a good start to learn C. For programming,
in general, there are other books, newer books, of course. But even
here, Knuth is a good start :).
 
W

websnarf

Leo said:
I am wondering if there is any programming certificate in C which can
prove somebody's C skills.
No.

I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C questions
which I was not prepared well. To avoid such questions in the future job
interview, I hope to take some kind of C certificate. But I don't know
if there is one.

Methinks you are missing the point. If you are unprepared to answer
questions about C in a job interview, then you are also unprepared to
program in it on the job. I don't see how a certificate would change
this equation.
 
C

Chuck F.

Nelu said:
I still think that K&R is a good start to learn C. For
programming, in general, there are other books, newer books, of
course. But even here, Knuth is a good start :).

Knuth is good for programming, but has absolutely nothing to do
with the C language. K&R2 is probably unsurpassed for the OPs purpose.

--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
More details at: <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/>
 
M

Michael Wojcik

If you look around at comp.lang.c you'll find that people with years of
experience programming C for a living sometimes gets it wrong, an
honors degree means nothing to these people. A 'certificate' will mean
even less.

There may be regulars here to whom "an honors degree means nothing",
and I doubt there are many regulars here who consider such a degree
any sort of proof (or even evidence) of competence in C, but there is
a world of difference between "not evidence of competence" and
"meaningless".

Some of us believe that formal education is quite valuable, and an
honors degree from a decent institution something to be proud of,
even if they are no guarantee of expertise in a particular area.
 
N

Nelu

Knuth is good for programming, but has absolutely nothing to do
with the C language. K&R2 is probably unsurpassed for the OPs purpose.
I was talking about Knuth being good for programming in general not C.
Is it possible to find K&R2 free on the Internet? I know you cand find
K&R, but I don't know about K&R2.
 
F

freak

Send me $1000 and I'll send you a certificate.

Seriously now, just tell the interviewer you are a novice but a fast
learner and ask for a chance. Tell all about the other languages you
have conquered. The only way to learn a language is to use it.
 

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