My attitude is that it takes a lot of work to learn new things and if I'm going to put in the effort, by gum, I want the trophy.

I have noticed that hardcore software engineers hate certifications.  The best programmers got that way because they have no interest in ever lifting their hands from the keyboard.  They wonder why anyone would spend hours studying for an exam when they can spend all night playing with the new JavaScript library.

This has led to sharp differences of opinion between certification-friendly developers and certification-hostile developers.  These developers will agree on the value of IT certifications about the same time that the Jews and the Arabs come together as one.

I spent a lot of  time getting Java certifications.  I wrote this article about how exhilarating it was to earn my Sun Certified Java Programmer cert after my supervisor told me I'd never make it.

Looking back on it, the best thing about getting that certification is that it got me published in Toastmasters Magazine.  I got congratulatory emails from other certification weenies from all over the world.  It was great.  I was their certification weenie hero for a day.  It was like they were carrying me around on their certification weenie virtual shoulders.

Getting my Toastmasters Competent Communicator pin was a very different type of certification.  I had to give ten in-person speeches.  It was nerve-wracking, but I did become a better public speaker in the process.  Now that I have it, I have to ask the question: what am I going to do with a pin?

People don't really walk around in the year 2011 wearing pins.  (Did they ever?)  Toastmasters should give something more useful, like a Competent Communicator microwave oven.  Now that I'd use!

I am currently working on getting a reporting and writing certificate from The Poynter Institute.  It is a humbling experience, believe me.

The certificate requires you to take five online classes, and there is an exam after each one.  The first course, "Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More", sounds innocuous enough, but it is deceptively tricky.  It requires you to know things like to form the possessive of a single common noun that ends in s, you should use apostrophe s unless the next word begins in s.

Got that?  So it is "the hostess's table" but "the hostess' seat".  Ugh.  This is going to take a while.

The best certifications are the ones that you can study for on your own and where you learn a lot about the subject as a side-effect of studying for the exam.

The most dubious certification I know of is Zend's PHP cert.  Zend offers a test prep course for $1,000, but I know PHP well so I tried to get that certification by way of self-study.  I spent weeks painstakingly going through the study guide page-by-page only to go down in a fiery ball of PHP testing failure.  I knew the material in the study guide inside and out but there were too many topics on the exam that weren't covered in the study guide.

I suspect that the PHP certification exists solely to sell enrollments in Zend's test prep courses.  I don't believe it is possible to pass that exam without shelling out a grand to take their prep course.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

I wish I knew how many hours I have spent in my life with my nose in a certification study guide.  I wonder if there is some sort of certification methadone clinic where I could get treatment for my addiction.