One thing I've always had a problem with is figuring out who really has their stuff together as far as skills go. When I interview someone the fact that they have a Sun Certification in Java means something, but there is more to know then writing code in order to be a contributing member of my team. The other day I was searching for something and I ran across JavaBlackBelt and I was very impressed with what I saw. The site explains their mission as follows:


We feel that most developers have unrecognized skills. They have to learn many technologies and frameworks to be productive. It takes 9 months on average for a non-java developer to be comfortable in writing a typical business application with Java.
The amount of technologies a Java developer knows and uses is amazing, and unfortunately often neither measured nor recognized. From my teaching experience, when I set up an education plan for beginners, I know that each topic in and of itself is not a problem. But the sum of all of the topics taken together really hurts! There are so many things to learn and remember that even the smallest teams tend to specialize each member.
With JavaBlackBelt, we want to give each Java developer an alternate way to measure and demonstrate his/her technical skills.



If the Java BlackBelt site had simply been an Open Source way of generating certificates I might have not even given it a second thought. However, the idea behind measuring an individual developer's skills based the entire package that person brings to the table is something I can appreciate. The next time I interview someone and they have a Java BlackBelt I will be much more inclined to think that person knows their stuff.