All change again on the microsoft developer certification front (and Microsoft admits C# and MVC have won)

12. April 2013 15:45 by Chris in Certification, dev  //  Tags:   //   Comments (0)

This as Microsoft likes to revamp it's certification every few years, which admittedly makes sense as 'time waits for no man' and technologies move on apace and this has rarely been truer than now.

So, we did have Microsoft developer certifications tied to  Visual Studio at the last revision - Visual Studio 2010 with the MCPD (Microsoft Certified Professional Developer) 4 (ASP.NET 4) qualification.

Now we have the (new) Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) … which has three strands:

1 Windows Store

Two tracts depending on your chosen technology stack

  • HTML5
     Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 (exam 480)
     Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps Using HTML5 and JavaScript (exam 481)
     Advanced Windows Store App Development Using HTML5 and JavaScript (exam 482)
  • C#
     Programming in C# (exam 483)
     Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps Using C# (exam 484)
     Advanced Windows Store App Development Using C# (exam 485) 

2 Web Applications

  • Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 (exam 480)
  • Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications (exam 486)
  • Developing Windows Azure and Web Services (exam 487)

3 Application Lifecycle Management

  • Administering Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 (exam 496)
  • Software Testing with Visual Studio 2012 (exam 497)
  • Delivering Continuous Value with Visual Studio 2012 Application Lifecycle Management (exam 498) 

 

Among the above are so-called Microsoft Specialist exams (HTML5 and C#). There is also currently one available for Office 365. See http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/specialist-certification.aspx.

And the Winners Are ...

This has been coming for a while but now Microsoft effectively admit that C# has beaten VB and MVC has beaten web forms. From the above we can deduce that Microsoft is admitting that these 2 technologies have won out in the MS web dev space: 

  • ASP.NET web forms vs ASP.NET MVC - only MVC is mentioned above so Microsoft clearly believes MVC is or should be the dominant technology for ASP.NET.
  • VB vs C#. Similarly whereas previously Microsoft always offered the option of taking exams in VB or C#, VB is no longer an option and the deduction is therefore that C# has become sufficiently dominant so as to negate Microsoft's continued support in this arena. 

Upgrading from MCPD

To upgrade from MCPD: Web Developer 4 to MCSD: Web Applications certification there is, unfortunately, no longer a single exam upgrade option as has previously been the case in similar situations. Two steps now:

1 Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 (exam 480)
2 Upgrade your MCPD: Web Developer 4 to MCSD: Web Applications (exam 492 – note that this is not yet available and google didn't help me locate a release date easily)

 

Reference

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/mcsd-certification.aspx

About the author

I am Dr Christopher Sully (MCPD, MCSD) and I am a Cardiff, UK based IT Consultant/ Developer and have been involved in the industry since 1996 though I started programming considerably earlier than that. During the intervening period I've worked mainly on web application projects utilising Microsoft products and technologies: principally ASP.NET and SQL Server and working on all phases of the project lifecycle. If you might like to utilise some of the aforementioned experience I would strongly recommend that you contact me. I am also trying to improve my Welsh so am likely to blog about this as well as IT matters.

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