Mike Hillyer wrote:
I think the other thing to remember is that this is only the Core exam,
and as far as I can tell a fair amount of the content you suggest will
be part of the Pro exam.
Fair enough. But that leaves the issue of exactly what is appropriate
to test in the Core exam.
The problem with more complicated exams is that they become difficult to
administer and grade automatically.
Usually, but not always. Any of the questions I had posed could have
been phrased as a multiple-choice question or equivalent, which would be
just as easy to grade as a syntax question. (In fact, that's how I
*intended* them to be answered, which I did not make clear -- and I was
too lazy and in some cases to ignorant to provide samples.) I
understand and agree that keeping the grading simple is critical.
While the MySQL Core exam may be less challenging
than an in-depth hands-on exam, I think the exam is good value for the
money. It shows you know the basics without checking the manual and can
spot basic syntax problems before running the query.
I don't want to spend too much time arguing this point, because it's a
valid one... but a question of degree. Yes, there's some value in
checking for kinowledge of syntax, but I believe that it's relatively
minor. Deeper questions will only be answerable by people who have an
adequate level of such information anyway. And by "deeper" I don't
necessarily mean questions that are in the realm of an expert, but
rather questions that require an understanding of relational databases,
SQL, or MySQL beyond syntax. An example of an elementary such question
might be:
Rows are added to and removed from tables using the UPDATE statement.
True or False?
I think you'd agree that it doesn't get much more basic than that! Yet,
it requires comprehension beyond simple syntax. It requires an
awareness of when a specific statement is required. If a programmer
using MySql doesn't know the answer, then s/he isn't much of a
programmer using MySql, whereas someone who forgets where the
parentheses in an INSERT goes may still be skilled and useful.
I have to agree that most certification tests are a brain-dump,
I don't think it has to be that way.
Bruce Feist
(retired database instructor / courseware designer)
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