Certified LabVIEW Veteran

[PdeB]

For the people that have been activally using and supporting LabVIEW for more than the past say 20 years in more than just basic applications it should be possible to be granted a CLV certificate. Last friday I tried the CLD exam and it was a struggle ...

[crossrulz]

Let me tell you from experience, just because you have been using the tool for a long time does not mean you are good at it, especially as much has changed in the last 10 years.  I still run into people who refuse to use Event Structures just because they refuse to "update" themselves.  And don't get me started on using source code control (a lot of the "veterans" still refuse to use SCC and trust zip files and backups).  This certification would actually be a red flag to me.

[nancyj]

You bring up some good points!!

 First, on the exam.  It's not easy and for some of us, even when we have been developing systems for decades (I date back to LabVIEW 1.2).  I had the old ATM when I sat for an exam, and it took a while to wrap my brain around a problem that was not a common application for me to code.  I was accustom to writing test applications, not doing an ATM simulation.  Then I made a few mistakes along the way - but passed.

The CLD exam has been in place for close to a decade and the grading process is very systematic.  It's a solid exam and process.  I was on the certification team for a while and can speak from experience.

Did you review the preparation material?  Did you try a sample exam?  So many of us stuggle on the first exam and then do much better on the second.  That goes for the CLA exam as well.

To you larger point.  Yes, we are and continue to evaluate the best options for our ongoing certification process.  In the Certified LabVIEW Architect community, we recognize that ideally, we would like to have some type of peer review as part of the process.  A peer review/vetting is something we think would benefit the program, though that is not necessarily an official NI statement or on the roadmap.  I'm letting you know that others share your sentiments and agree that a long history of success on LabVIEW should count for something.  I can say that in NI's continuous improvement culture, we are working on ideas for the future.

Feel free to email me with specific concerns at nancy.jones@ni.com and I'll gladly engage and forward to our certification team.  Given the NDA nature of the exam details, it will best be handled internally.  Thank you for not posting details and for being candid in your comments.

[Darren]

National Instruments will not be implementing this idea. See the idea discussion thread for more information.