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Discussion on: Should we form a labor union?

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Adrián Norte

No thanks, I live in Europe where most of that is already covered and protected by law.

By the way, the standardized test and certification thing sounds to me very detrimental to a sector that evolves at the speed that our does.

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Stephen Belovarich • Edited

Some of us are not so fortunate. The state of testing is already very bad. I’ve taken probably over 100 tests in the past 20 years and haven’t seen them moving at the speed of light. On the contrary, I’m still asked completely asinine questions.

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Stephen Belovarich • Edited

The whole idea behind a very clear cut certification for various technologies is so you wouldn’t have to take tests written by people who are not qualified to even conduct a test. The certification could be a living document. It doesn’t have to stagnate.

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Adrián Norte • Edited

And who would decide what is the correct test method and content? And the new ones?

If a technology or framework starts gaining traction should it be tested before or after it is widely spread? What technologies are going to be tested? because depending on the vertical business your company is, the technologies used can vary a lot.

This is what I mean, I think this is one of those things that sounds good on paper and is proposed in good faith but at the end of the day is detrimental to everyone.

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Stephen Belovarich • Edited

Perhaps it’s time to hand over test curation to academics, you know the people trained in education who are actually qualified to create rubric, define meaningful test questions and conduct a test with some integrity.

I disagree that certification is detrimental. On the contrary, studying for a certification can be quite rewarding. You’ll learn things you may not have otherwise known. I for one want to work with people who continually learn.

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Adrián Norte

Do you mean the same academics that haven't coded in decades?

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Stephen Belovarich

Ugh. Nothing is absolute.

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Adrián Norte

I'm not saying it as an absolute, what I'm trying to make you see is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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Stephen Belovarich

Sorry don’t see it. You’re talking to one of those academics.

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Adrián Norte

So, how would you test if someone knows how to measure cohesion vs coupling and how to decide the correct balance?

How to choose a technology for that vertical? How to plan a refactor of a 10-year-old codebase?

Testing little things like proficiency in X or Y is easy, that is why certifications exist. Real software engineering challenges are still debated how are best solved, how will you test it then?

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Stephen Belovarich

😑

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Stephen Belovarich • Edited

You are getting way into the minutia for a post that is mostly about worker’s rights. No one is arguing an interview should be devoid of conversation or even debate. There are certainly questions that could be asked that aren’t covered by certification. That doesn’t mean certifications aren’t also valuable.

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Adrián Norte • Edited

I'm not attacking you, don't take me wrong. I'm just trying to challenge your ideas to avoid a little "happy bubble".

In my country, unions do great things and are historically responsible for lots of workers rights but the big ones have turned into an extension of the political parties and are used to keep workers in check and perpetuate the status quo. The tests done by them are mostly political and focused on gaining money and ripe with corruption and all of that happened in less than 20 years. Do you think it would fare differently in the states?

My advice, if you want it, is to promote socialism instead of unions. If by law you have paid vacations, maternity and paternity paid leave(ideally with both being in equal length to avoid discrimination against women), a livable minimum wage and universal healthcare you won't need any unions.
Unions were needed when socialism was an unknown scary thing for the elites and the workers had to force it, now you people just need to vote for parties that want to implement the same we have in all the European Union.

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Stephen Belovarich • Edited

I don’t feel attacked. 🤷‍♂️ Try saying the word socialism in America and see where that gets you. It’s still a scary thing.

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Jan Wedel • Edited

In Germany, we call it “social market economy”, so it doesn’t sound that scary. See where it got us 😊
We have all benefits André mentioned plus most software developers working in larger companies are actually part of the union that organizes engineers in general.