Today I passed my first Microsoft Certification test in about seven years. I passed the first of two tests, 70-528 (Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Web-Based Client Development) on my way to MCTS. I've had mixed feelings on certifications and still do to this day. I know some
very talented certified developers who add to the MC* reputation. Likewise I know several developers who despite being certified, can't program, and weaken/cheapen the MC* title.
My reaction to the test is that it is heavily weighted in places that seemingly don't matter "in the real world". I'm keenly aware I could be way off base here, however I've been working with .NET now since 2003 and asp before that. The two areas that were heavily stressed in my test were deployment ("Copy Website", Publishing, aspnet_compiler) and Mobile Controls. In my nearly 5 years with .NET I have never written an application that uses mobile web controls. Should I have? Am I strange? Regarding "deployment", at
Geonetric, we have a build server which uses
Cruise Control and
NANT, and therefore I rarely (read:never) have used the "Copy Website" function from within Visual Studio to get a site to a staging server, nor used the "ASP.NET Configuration" application to change web.config settings in my production machine.
While the debate can rage on about the relevancy of tests, I'm softening my position on them and do see them as beneficial (maybe for another post) when taken as part of a whole. In some chats with
Scott Hanselman about the subject recently, he took the stance that certifications are just a good resume line item but the most important thing was to ship software, not what collection of consonants you can string together behind your name.
