NI + Exams

[jgcode]

Following on from the Tom's paper chase and internal NI certificaton - this question is an off shoot that I guess only NI posters can answer but is open for discussion:

Do the exam markers actually sit through the NI Courses :question:

One example being I copied NI style from the Int course when I sat the CLD, and got picked up on it.

[More specifically - the use of coercion dots for the variant in the queue datatype cluster when making a wrapper VI for the display queue].

I did not do the data-to-variant conversion but nor does NI in their course - so I thought it was ok.

But then they penalise for it in the exam - I find that very hypocritical, inconsistent & annoying. :headbang:

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (jgcode @ Aug 25 2008, 02:08 AM)

I did not do the data-to-variant conversion but nor does NI in their course - so I thought it was ok.

But then they penalise for it in the exam - I find that very hypocritical, inconsistent & annoying. :headbang:

So what?

No seriously, you should use the 'Data to variant' (I don't do it every time), in LabVIEW 8.0 there was a bug that mixed up variant data in memory.

Ton

[Tom Bress]

If you go to the NI website and look at the comments people have left on the pages that link to the CLD sample exams you'll see similar complaints. You can download NI's proposed solutions to the exams, and they have some problems. For example, one of the test criteria is that your solution not eat up 100% of the CPU, and the solutions have loops that don't have Wait functions built into them.

That's one of the reasons why I was advocating an external board to help grade certification exams. An external board would have more practical LabVIEW application programming experience than most NI employees, and would be able to pick up on things like this.

[Chris Davis]

QUOTE (Tom Bress @ Aug 25 2008, 10:12 AM)

That's one of the reasons why I was advocating an external board to help grade certification exams. An external board would have more practical LabVIEW application programming experience than most NI employees, and would be able to pick up on things like this.

Who would you see sitting on this external board? LabVIEW Champions? Exisitng CLA's? CLD's?

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (Chris Davis @ Aug 25 2008, 11:22 AM)

Who would you see sitting on this external board? LabVIEW Champions? Exisitng CLA's? CLD's?

There is nothing that says a LV Champion knows what they are talking about, just they have talked a lot.

CLA's would have to be paid for their time.

Who's left?

Ben

[crelf]

QUOTE (neB @ Aug 25 2008, 11:53 AM)

CLA's would have to be paid for their time.

Now you're talkin'! :thumbup:

[Tom Bress]

QUOTE (Chris Davis @ Aug 25 2008, 11:22 AM)

Who would you see sitting on this external board? LabVIEW Champions? Exisitng CLA's? CLD's?

CLAs would be able to grade either CLD or CLA tests, CLDs could grade CLD tests. And yes, compensation is an issue. I having a certification board reduced the load on NI personnel then a fair compensation would be win-win for everyone involved.

My suggestion was aimed at getting a larger pool of practicing application engineers involved in grading and creating the certification exams. I think that it would be an improvement over having a small pool of currently non-certified NI personnel responsible for the grading.

For one thing, practicing application engineers have more LabVIEW programming experience and are more likely to be on the "cutting edge" of best practices and style. The current LAVA 3-button dialog coding challenge is a good example of this. A community that cares that deeply about LabVIEW style and practice could provide a number of graders and test-creators as qualified, or better qualified, than the internal personnel that NI currently uses.