Visual Studio 2010 Exams Are Changing

Hi Gerry, I agree about MCPD, companies do not recognize this title. MCTS for development professionals is more clear and specific. []s

Hi Gerry, I like to suggest a Visual Studio related, non-developer exam and maybe a related book or e-learning or even a instructor led course: MCTS: Deploying, Configuration and Maintaining Visual Studio Team system (including database edition) Or MCTS: Deploying, Configuration and Maintaining a Development environment This includes the first suggestion, but adds designing and maintaining a virtual (hyper-v)development test lab. Rationale: A lot off larger ISV’s have ITPro’s and not developers maintaining the environment the developers do their work in, It would be nice to have a certification for this. Rob. B.T.W. Will you be visiting TechED EMEA this year ?

Hi Rob, You do know that we have a TFS exam that covers those topics right? :-) As for TechED EMEA, I can t say for certain. I would love to but I haven t been asked or sought approval yet. Germany would be a great place to visit. I was in Zurich in 2007 and absolutely loved it and Germany is certainly high on my list as well. Need to go back and retake some language learning too. Gerry

Adding to my comment above: Besides the certification, It would be nice to have some learning materials for this

Well, we do have a workshop on TFS but we do need to update some of our training for VSTS and TFS so I do agree with your sentiment. I can t gaurantee any training though. Gerry

Hi Gerry, Thanks for your answer. I know about the 70-510 exam, but because this a VS 2005 exam that was never updated for VS 2008 and it doesn t look like there will be a VS 2010 version, I worry that once the VS 2010 exams go live this exam will disappear with the rest of the VS 2005 exams, when they are phased out. And then there will be no exam covering this subject. And yes, there is in theory a workshop, but (at least in .nl) no CPLS has scheduled it for at least a year. Rob.

Some interesting changes are afoot then... Couple of questions: Will there still be an App Dev foundation exam to count towards the MCPD qualification as in the 3.5 series? And when you say the Windows exam will cover Forms and WPF will that be split questions in the same way we have the VB/C# split in the current exams or will you expect Dev s to know both methods presentation? I agree with your comments on the Enterprise cert, it always struck me as more of a "jack of all trades" certification rather than demonstrating any real depth of knowledge applicable to enterprise environments.

Information on .NET 4.0 exams... There’s an interesting post on Born to Learn about the new .NET 4.0 developer exams.  It looks as though the Windows Developer track is going to merge the Windows Forms and WPF tracks into a single exam also Silverlight is being rolled into the ...

Hi Edward, There will be no exam similar to 70-536 for .NET 4. One exam, one cert. As for the split between Windows Forms and WPF, it won t be the same as the VB/C# split where you can choose which topic the exam focuses on. The subject matter experts that we invite to help design the exam will determine the appropriate coverage of each, but both technologies will exist on the same exam. There will still be the language branching for VB and C# though. Gerry

I m hoping this means that you will no longer be training or testing on ASMX Web Services, but will rather be sticking with WCF.

Hi John, While we haven t created the exam design yet, I fully suspect that the subject matter experts, aka your peers, that come in for the design session will be thinking of WCF for sure. I fully suspect that accessing services on any exam will have a focus on WCF services. Which exam were you referring to in terms of ASMX and Web Services? I know that we covered that in .NET 2.0 but I would have to confirm on our 3.5 exams. I know there is a standalone WCF exam for 3.5 and that accessing Web services was likely on the ASP and possibly Windows exams. Remember, not everyone is using WCF yet either. I ve said it many times before and I ll continue to repeat it. Microsoft does not dictate what goes these exams. We rely on industry professionals to tell us what they and their companies use on a day-to-day basis and what is important for developers to know. We have to validate skills on real-world usage not just features. We have very interesting debates among the SMEs in our focus group sessions and it proves one point on a regular basis. There is consensus on most topics, but there will always be disparity in other areas as well. We re sort of like backward compatibility in Windows. We want you to use the new features and technology because Microsoft invests huge effort and expenditure in creating them. They are based on feedback from users on what they want, and we do the same thing with exams, which is why I blog about them. But, for every one of you bleeding edge adopters, there s always someone who waits in the wings and continues to use the last version. I m bleeding edge myself, most of the time, and I love the new stuff in VS. Have you looked at Workflow in beta 1 of VS 2010? WOW! But ultimately, we want to ensure that we are validating skills that employers are looking for. Keep the comments coming because this is a great venue for telling us what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong. You ll continue to see me defend our decisions when I think they are correct for our customers as a whole, and you ll also see me admit when we have made a mistake. BTW, the last time we did an exam that discussed Web services, it was actually one of the soon to be released MTA exams, there was a heated discussion over this very topic of WCF and ASMX. There was actually one person in the room who wasn t even sure that ASMX should even be mentioned. And don t ask about the MTA exams, I can t talk about them yet. :-) Gerry

Gerry, sorry I didn t reply sooner - I didn t see your comment. Unfortunately, so much time has passed, that I don t recall how I ever got here! I suspect someone in a forum asked about ASMX in the context of the tests, and referred me to this post. I just have no idea who that might have been! John

Hello Gerry

I got back into the exam cycle by taking 70-536. It was so fun because the real everyday things like Threading, Security, Serialization, etc.. were never covered in the exams that I used to take in 2004-2005.

Thanks to 70-536, I use these techniques every day. I could not thank MS enough for opening my eyes to these possibilities, which I considered good enough only for the system level programmers.

Is there some other exam which I can take for VS2010 to remain in touch with such foundation learning.

70-536 is one which I believe every developer should take. On the other hand, if it goes away from the set of exams, it will be good for those who took it since they will be able to stand out, so it may not be that bad for people like me anyways. I guess it is just my philanthropic side which is asking this question :).

Regards

Hello Gerry

I got back into the exam cycle by taking 70-536. It was so fun because the real everyday things like Threading, Security, Serialization, etc.. were never covered in the exams that I used to take in 2004-2005.

Thanks to 70-536, I use these techniques every day. I could not thank MS enough for opening my eyes to these possibilities, which I considered good enough only for the system level programmers.

Is there some other exam which I can take for VS2010 to remain in touch with such foundation learning.

70-536 is one which I believe every developer should take. On the other hand, if it goes away from the set of exams, it will be good for those who took it since they will be able to stand out, so it may not be that bad for people like me anyways. I guess it is just my philanthropic side which is asking this question :).

Regards