Re: certification

[Amy Chused <achused@bbnplanet.com>]

At 03:50 PM 3/12/98 -0500, Mark Sienkiewicz wrote:
>How many "optional" merit badges is too many?  It IS possible to
>offer too many.  Given that there can be only a few, you must choose
>them carefully to avoid using up your small number without covering
>everything that needs to be covered.

You're making an assumption that I disagree with.

Why do there have to be only a small number of merit badges?  IMO, there
should be a small number of "recommended basic" merit badges, but a near
infinite number of merit badges for specialized bits of knowledge.

We use SSH for a number of specialized applications here.  We sometimes
hack the source code (just tweaks) and we frequently make extensive use of
the configuration files.  If merit badges existed, we'd look for an SSH
merit badge.  We wouldn't require it, since we value learning ability more
than any particular bit of knowledge, but if someone had it, it would be a
nice bonus.

I envision merit badges for DNS, News Concepts, News-INN, News-Cyclone,
Backups Concepts, Backups-Amanda, Backups-Legato, SSH, PGP, Jumpstart,
Building Packages, Building Boot CD's, Security Concepts, SecurID
Administration, Perl, Tcl, Expect, Building a secure anonymous FTP server,
and many more.

No one would be expected to have all of them.

	Amy