Microsoft's 10-year-old Certified Professional

idigjazz writes "Meet Arfa, a promising young software programmer from Faisalabad, Pakistan, who is believed to be the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in the world. She received the certification when she was 9. During a recent meeting with Bill Gates, she presented him with a poem she wrote that celebrated his life story."

Just confirms

[Knome_fan]

how demanding getting an MCSE is. ;-D

Impressive but...

[aidanjpadden]

one of the MCP exams did take me five minutes to finish - if this 9 year old girl beat that my ego is battered!

I mean, shes 9 - and she's a girl :(

Epic Poem

[gbulmash]

Her poem celebrating Bill's life:

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who told all the world to suck it
Selling insecure code
He sure was a chode
And his ethics could not fill a bucket

- G

Re:So what does this say?

[Ruud Althuizen]

This kind of sounds like Seven of Nine. Resistance is futile...

MSCE

[zerojoker]

"The type of thinking that goes into correctly answering those questions is pretty mature. ... Microsoft certifications are not a joke -- they're highly respected in the industry." rotfl

Oh Dear God!

[utdpenguin]

Won't somebody think of hte children?????

Re:Big deal.

[oldwolf13]

I started programming at 10..

of course... a lot of it was stuff like..

10 print "k-mart sucks dick!"
20 goto 10

entered on a commodore 64 at a local k-mart store for all the passer bys to see :)

Burn em fast, burn em hard

[bigbinc]

This chick will be so burnt out by the time she is 20, it won't even be funny. I saw the smile, what a nice smile. In 4 years, she will look like Glenn Close or Susan Sarandon.

Send her to the customers at 15, she will be crying to Mommy 2 weeks later. Then comes the drinking, the drugs, 3 or 4 divorces.

...life is good.

From the article

[wormuniverse]

"The type of thinking that goes into correctly answering those questions is pretty mature. ... Microsoft certifications are not a joke -- they're highly respected in the industry." ... seriously, i can't figure out what industry they are talking about.

Re:Epic Poem

[Anonymous Coward]

There once was a programmer named Gates
Who never could get any dates
So he bought MS-DOS
Became his own boss
And now he just masturbates

Re:Burn em fast, burn em hard

[bigbinc]

You know what people do at 10, they eat paint, sniff glue. Play doom for 30 hours straight.

So sad

[mischalla]

During a recent meeting with Bill Gates, she presented him with a poem she wrote that celebrated his life story.

Whats next? The ode to the blue screen? Did Bill give her his compu-papal blessing?

Re:Wait, 9 year old is younger than 8 year now?

[Anonymous Coward]

>What's going on here?

Calc.exe ?

Re:Get them young huh?

[Petersson]

This is not just a kid...

This is the Microsoft Youngling!

Reminds me of a quote....

[ceeam]

MCSE is to computers as McDonalds Certified Chef is to fine cuisine.

Bill Sidious!

[Joel Rowbottom]

"Rise, my young apprentice..."

(eek).

She wrote a poem about BillG?

[QuantumG]

Shit, that must have been hard, I mean, how many words rhyme with "bastard"?

Unfortunate Paragraph

[zaguar]

Afterward, Arfa described Gates as an "ideal personality," explaining that he had been second only to Disneyland on her list of things she wanted to see in the United States. Previously unaware of the casual dress code at Microsoft, she said she had expected Gates to be wearing a suit but was surprised to find him in a casual shirt with the top button open.

Wonder how Bill is feeling now! Richest guy in the world upstaged by Disneyland?

Re:don't be so negative

[tgd]

<grumpy_old_man>
Back in my day, us kids had to write in assembly, and we didn't have these fancy registers you young whipper-snappers have today! We just had an accumulator and sixteen K of memory!

Kids these days! You've all got it so easy!

And get off my lawn!
</grumpy_old_man>

You do realize...

[tkrotchko]

You do realize that you're taking issue with a 10 year old, right?

Re:Get them young huh?

[R.D.Olivaw]

Sith apprentices are called younglings too??

Re:Epic Poem

[Keebler71]

During a recent meeting with Bill Gates, she presented him with a poem she wrote that celebrated his life story

Was it a haiku?

I wrote Bill a poem too...

[djupedal]

Dear bill they love you there in pakistan
you know how hard it is to be an also ran
and since the trial you've been working so hard on your tan
to do everything you think you duly can
to be doted on and smiled at by even just one fan

The EU said go away...China said come back another day, so now it's third world slumming for you while you pray
that you don't end up in a pakistani jail where you'll get blown away. die bill die

Re:Epic Poem

[kaellinn18]

What? What's a preview button?

I stole stuff from Jobs.
And now I own Microsoft.
Holy crap I'm rich.

This convinced me...

[WRoach]

Pakistan and india are the only two countries that I know of where many of the geeks are women who are good looking and its considered a good thing to be living with your parents as an adult until you are married...think about it!

That's it, I'm outsourcing myself.

Re:So what does this say?

[jgerman]

On a more modern note, no. I think anyone capable of using a computer can program one and it always has been so.

You're on crack.

Re:So what does this say?

[Andrewkov]

I think the parents should be charged with child abuse ... Forcing a child to learn Windows, it should be criminal!

Re:So what does this say?

[photon317]

I can go door to door around here and find thousands of porn-surfers, yet even in my own office building among a group of unix guys, I can only find one other real programmer.

Re:I think she is smart...

[Civil Beast]

If you check out her photo, in another 10-15 years she is going to be a major geek hottie...

... Now where is that (-1) Disturbing - Moderation when you need it?

Re:Get them young huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

MSFTs 3 R's

Reset, Reboot, Reformat

Re:Yes and no.

[pegr]

He went eight years without his "precious" because he submitted to the collective will of some brain-dead academic airheads? What's smart about that?

Sometimes opportunity knocks. Other times, you have to roam the streets until you find it, beat it over the head, and drag it back to your place kicking and screaming... Where you have your pit already prepared... Some nice swing albums from the forties, a couple of car batteries, a fifty-pound bag of lime, bottle of ether... Wait, what were talking about again?

Re:Just confirms

[slapout]

Is it just me or does it seem that IT people tend to play Minesweeper while non-IT people gravitate towards Solitaire?

what Kool-aid is she drinking?

[warpSpeed]

A poem of bills life? Yikes! She is only 9, I guess she is not old enough to have grown a hard sarcastic shell yet.

Poem? I got one of those...

[caudron]

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Your OS is shit.
And so are you.

Please, no applause, just throw money.

Re:So what does this say?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about India, but in this country we do have child labor laws. No surprise to me that Bill Gates would exploit children in support of his empire's hedgemony. Shameful.

Re:Epic Poem

[patio11]

This warm summer morning, Trolls on Slashdot attack me. Oh well, I'm still rich.

Re:So what does this say?

[borawjm]

Well how else do you think Bill Gates gets customers? It's the same reason Kim Jong-il is in power. Gotta get 'em while they're young!

Medioce Poetry

[ari_j]

I've read poems written by 10-year-olds, and they all sucked. Really bad. Now you're telling me that she has written "plenty of C#" code. I've also read poems written by C# developers, and they all sucked. Really bad.

I'm sure that Bill Gates was pleased beyond words to hear his life story summed up in a few lines of Vogon poetry.

Re:Get them young huh?

[ArAgost]

you misspelled "Lego".

Re:Equal Opportunities

[Anonymous Coward]

I think in any job the only people who should be there are those that have proven their worth.
This OTT political correctness/quota balancing act in lots of workplaces is just dumb.

Dude, you're arguing with the opinion of a 10 year old girl.

I doubt she has any influence over government or corporate policies so I'm fairly certain you won't have to worry about being exposed to insidious 'girl cooties' any time soon.

Aside from that, it is not possible for you to present a meaningful argument against the assertion that, since men and women are divided up roughly 50/50 and there is nothing in the female physical/emotional/intellectual makeup that would prevent them from working with computers, men and women should be represented 50/50 in IT.

And that little girl seems to prove it since she is apparently more intelligent than you.

She can't be *THAT* bright......

[Nagatzhul]

She likes Windoze enough to get certified in it *AND* she is writing poetry about Bill's life.

How twisted is that??

Re:Medioce Poetry

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Perhaps you should read poems written by Perl developers instead.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Threni]

> If an 8-year-old can do it, and you haven't demonstrated that the child is a
> genius, then a reasonable conclusion is that it is easy.

So, an 8 year old has passed an exam - they must be clever. Perhaps the exam is worthless though, because if an 8 year old has passed it, it must be easy. Have any other 8 year olds passed it? No. Still, they can't be a genius because they're only 8 and passed an exam. And if other 8 year olds had passed it, then they can't be geniuses either because of the other 8 year olds that passed it.

You've made your point loud and clear!

Re:Let me get this straight...

[KanSer]

I've been saying this for years. A 10 year old could do any MCSE's job.

Re:I think she is smart...

[AvantLegion]

If you check out her photo, in another 10-15 years she is going to be a major geek hottie... so be nice and not be pricks!

What's this "in 10-15 years" stuff?

Hooray, creepy young girl lust!

Re:Impressive but...

[Anonymous Coward]

But the most impressive part is that her resume says she has 10 years experience.

Re:So what does this say?

[sgt_doom]

Hmmmm....by that brand of 'logic' anyone who is capable of driving a car is capable of designing one!!!!

Anyone capable of using an umbrella is capable of explaining climatology!!!!

Anyone capable of using a TV-remote is capable of designing and building a Hi-def TV set!!!!!

Re:I think she is smart...

[tzuriel]

Clearly, she is smart.

Afterward, Arfa described Gates as an "ideal personality," explaining that he had been second only to Disneyland on her list of things she wanted to see in the United States.

She's got her priorities straight. See the large mouse first and then the little rat.

Re:Impressive but...

[Anonymous Coward]

...it must be about whether or not you have the jiggly-bits.

No, it's just that women have trouble pressing the 11-key chord to get into the super-secret "MSCE console" dialog where you can set the IE crash interval, the SMB network delay and the chance of a random Outlook event.

Re:Submitted this two months ago

[Shadow_139]

You know /. only posts Old or Dupe News....

THe Earth will start spinning backwards if /. had a new uptodate story first.......

How is this News for Nerds. Stuff that matters?

[dspisak]

Oh, I see now...future trophy wife down the road. Thanks Slashdot.

"Go make me a CMS framework woman!"

Re:Let me get this straight...

[alexhs]

I've been saying this for years. A 10 year old could do any MCSE's job.

When using binary numbers, please precise the numbering base... a 10b year old ... :)