031 What Certifications Are Best For C# Developers?

Which certifications are best for C# developers? Are the Azure certifications the place to go? What happened to the C# certifications? Should I get certified in C#? These are the questions we will tackle in this episode of Dev Questions.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey. Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology. If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered. Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

What certifications are best for C developers? This question has been asked over and over and over again. I think it's about time we address it. Okay. Specifically, I want to shout out uh Glenn, David, Abdallah, Mohammed, and there's more, but those are the four that kind of stuck out recently that have asked us question. Let's talk first about the history of certification when it comes to Microsoft certifications, especially. Um C Sharp has always had some type of certification until now. It used to be that a certification was a pretty large test. It was usually four uh four multiple choice answers and hundreds of questions. So it used to be that you could study for the test where you would get these books that would kind of show you the kind of questions they'd ask, or even sometimes unethically, the actual questions that were on the test, and then you would study the answers and you would continue to do practice tests until you got you know those practice tests down, and then you were able to go and take the certification. Do you hear a problem with that at all? What's the point with certification? It's supposed to be to say that I am certified in this area, I am able to do the work in this area. Well, if you memorized a whole bunch of answers to questions, how much did you actually absorb? Or let's put it a different way, how much is actual practical knowledge? If I can tell you that brake pads go near the rotor on a car, I'd probably be right. Um, but if you ask me to actually put brake pads on a car, I'm not gonna do that because I want to endanger your safety or mine driving in that vehicle afterwards. I'm not a car guy. So that's the difference between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge. Do you want a developer who goes, Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know how if statements work, but I I've never used one. Do you want that developer? Well, no, you don't. But the certification kind of said that developer knew what they were talking about. And this is a big deal back in the day because you had developers that had mountains of certifications and they had just gotten practice tests or books or stolen the answers, and then used those to pretend like they were certified developers, but all they were was people who could memorize some answers, not the same thing. And that gave certifications a really bad name, which is why for a long time certifications didn't matter at all, because it it didn't really tell you anything about the developer. In fact, oftentimes I heard people tell me that they would not hire a person who had a certain developer certificate or the you know the bigger certifications because of the fact that more likely than not, they were not a good developer. More likely they had memorized the answers and they had no clue how to do a job because so many people came through with lots of certifications and no ability, no practical knowledge of C development. And so Microsoft did a lot of work and they they really worked hard to change their certification process. It went from multiple choice to more of a hybrid until finally it was a really a full environment of practical knowledge or as close as they could get in a test that was automated. And that's really the problem. We'll get to that in just a minute. But their testing was was pretty good. Where I recently, not recently, goodness, it's been probably five years, but I I sat down for an Azure exam. It was one of those things where I was given the exam certificate for free to take the exam. And so I walked in without training a lick. I said, let's see if my knowledge is up to speed. And I passed, I was able to get the the certification. I forget which Azure certification it was, but it was a pretty entry-level one. Um, but that test was all practical. It was, you know, okay, here's your environment. Now go find the problem. You have to actually use the actual tools and find the problems, and you have to even for some lines of code, you have to figure out what a line of code would be and write that in. And there's other things like that that they did that made the certification a lot more real-world-like. So they came a long way with their certifications. And the MCAD, I believe it was, was pretty respectable as far as the certification. It took, I think, four or five different um smaller certifications to get the MCAD. But Microsoft has retired that. Now, because of you know the recent events and work from home and all the problems of the virus, they had changed the the end date for taking those certifications from, I believe it was June of 2020. Now is July of, I'm sorry, January of 2021, when those certifications fully go away for C sharp, the MCAD. Um, after that point, you can't take the tests anymore. So whatever certification you had at that point, that's what you end up with. The other thing is that certifications expire, which makes sense. They used to be these long-term things, but when the language changed so much, that doesn't make sense. So you have expirations too. Well, now Microsoft has kind of abandoned the idea of C sharp certification. And so when it comes to certification, you can get Azure certified, but not C sharp certified. At least not yet. And there may be some changes coming up. I'm not sure. I haven't heard of any. But I actually like the fact that Microsoft is not giving certifications for C sharp developers. And here's why. Because certifications should say what you can do, they should be able to say you are capable of doing this thing. And an automated test really can't do that. And so I'd like to see a more um hands-on proof of what you can do. And there's there's things ways you can do that, and there's companies that may come along and do that. Who knows? I may even create my own certification. Um, because I think it's important to have some kind of certification ability to prove yourself, but at the same time, I think it takes a lot more hands-on than just an automated test can give you. I think there has to be a lot more interactivity to it, a lot more subjectivity to it. And so there's a lot of work that has to be done there, and it's not something that Microsoft can necessarily do at that scale. So when it comes to should you get certified? Well, in C Sharp, you really can't right now, uh, at least not from Microsoft. There may be third-party people out there that give you some kind of certification. I mean, goodness, if you complete my courses, you get a certificate of completion. Not the same thing as a certification. But um, other places might give you a certification if you finish their stuff, how much value that is. Again, if you complete one of my courses, I would hope you'd have the education you need, but that's kind of on you, whether you just zoned out while I spoke, or if you actually practice what I taught you and tried things out and learned from it. Two people can go through my content and either be horrible at the end or amazing at the end. It all depends on how they interact with the content. And so just saying automated, yes, you completed all the required steps, not good enough. Having some kind of test, if you notice most of my content does not have testing. We have the ability to put tests in. I usually don't because a test is not real world. It's theory. What I do instead is say, here's some homework. And I don't give you the answer because I want you to look at the requirements, do the work, and then say, does it meet the requirements? Because that's what you're gonna do in the real world. Your boss isn't gonna give you the answer key to your application you have to build at work. That's just not how the life works. Your boss is gonna say, here's the requirements, go do it. And at the end, you're gonna say, it's done because it meets all the requirements. That's real life. So that's what I do in my homework. But if I was gonna test you and certify you, I'd have to then look at your homework at the end of it, or review in some way and say, okay, yes, this is good, or this needs some work. And based upon that, give you a grade of some kind. This comes back to kind of what we do in universities and colleges. And to some extent, those are good, but a lot of times professors will will fall back on that idea of an automated system, like a test or a quiz that has multiple choice or fill in a blank or so on, because it's just easier at volume. But you really need someone say this is how this is what they proved, and have someone look over it. So, right now, I would say certification on the C sharp side is a no. Now, on the Azure side, yeah, those can be valuable. And the reason why is because I think the Azure certifications, first of all, they are practical, but second of all, they prove that you have worked with the product somewhat, and so there is a level of value there if you want to work with Azure in business. So, yeah, I think that those do have some merit to them. I wouldn't um go so deep into them that that you spend all your time there. I think that's more a matter, a product of you've already been working with them and now you just want to prove that you know what you're doing. So if you're buying books and watching videos that are exam prep and you haven't actually done the work yet, that's probably not not a good use of your time, and it's probably not a good uh proof that you can do the job. All right. Do the work first, use them, and then learn the nuances you need to to pass the exam because that will help grow your knowledge in the area. All right, so that's my thoughts on certification. Like I said, I may come up with certification at some point to help you out because I do think that certifications can be really valuable if they're done right, but they have to be a more personal thing than just a test. Thanks to the question, everyone. I appreciate everyone that's asked this question. If you'd like your question answered in this series, either use the form on the podcast podcast page at imtimcorey.com or leave a comment on the YouTube video. As always, I appreciate it when you share these episodes. It really helps out. It helps other developers find this content and it helps me as well. So thanks for listening. As always, I am Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Def Questions. Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer. If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Deaf Questions. You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com. Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did. When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.