I agree with theorbtwo that certifications can be overrated, and even meaningless b/c they don't guage real ability and tests can be written subjectively. Eg: I found an online Perl exam two years ago. I took the "Beginner" test fearing that the "Intermediate" and "Expert" would just humiliate me. I got a 60-something%. Angered, I took the "Expert" and got 100%.

That said, I think Perl Certification is an extremely important idea that really should happen b/c of this: Our future

Regardless of the potential for nonsense, it would add a tremendous amount of legitimacy to Perl as a language in the eyes of the... well, you know who. And if architected correctly, it could help Perl in the eyes of most here.

Eg: The YAS could collect a flat $5 fee for every online cert test and a $20 fee for the actual certificate. That money would fund future grants to kids like Sugalski and Conway (and maybe merlyn and Wall for that matter). It could even archive the names of the certified, adding more legitimacy to the résumé of the hacker in question.

There might be a tremendous struggle about who/how/when but I think it would really advance Perl. And the how isn't that important. A cert 0.01 might not be great but by 3.22 a few months later it might be perfect and just in time to make Perl 6.0 less frightening and more seductive to the non-Perl world of CS.