Is there any point starting .NET 3.5 certification now?

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+5 Q:

Is there any point starting .NET 3.5 certification now?

To start, I'm aware of the debate over the value of programming certifications. It's not really the subject of this question. Suffice to say that I believe studying for a certification will greatly help me in understanding .NET.

I've been looking at the .NET certification options, starting with exam 70-536, which is for .NET 3.5. .NET 4.0 is on the way though, with a new CLR version among other changes.

My question is: should I start working on a 3.5 certification considering that 4.0 versions may be on their way?

+7 A:

You mention in your question that you believe studying for the certification will greatly help you in understanding .Net. If that is your main goal, then yes go for the certification.

Just because 4.0 is being released doesn't mean 3.5 is going away. Quite the opposite. It will likely be more popular for some time, at least until 4.0 gains install traction. Even when 4.0 does gain traction it won't invalidate everything you know about 3.5. 4.0 is in many ways an extension of 3.5 so the majority of what you learn will still be valid.

JaredPar 2010-02-06 20:21:54

Jared's dead-on 4.0 is a superset of 3.5, you're not wasting your time at all.

Nick Craver 2010-02-06 20:26:19

Yeah, if you waited for 4.0 then you'd still have to end up learning probably everything you would've learned studying for 3.5 certification anyway.

Dan Tao 2010-02-06 20:31:30

dboarman 2010-02-06 20:38:04

and it takes a reasonable amount of time for .NET 4.0 certs to be developed after the product launches.

Mehrdad Afshari 2010-02-06 20:46:07

Also, there are usually upgrade exams that cover the changes, are there not?

Ninefingers 2010-02-06 20:48:05

If you really needed 4.0 vs 3.5 certification that is.

Ninefingers 2010-02-06 20:48:28

Thanks for the comments. It's good to know I won't be wasting the time spent on studying 3.5, despite 4.0 approaching. I'm convinced enough to order the 70-536 book tonight.

Grant Palin 2010-02-07 01:22:39

4.0 is going to be a bigger change than 2.0 was when moving to 3.5. Having said that, everything in 3.5 will still be there in 4, so learning 4 once you've done the certification will definitely be a lot easier..

Michael Baldry 2010-02-06 20:22:18

+1 A:

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-536

says: "If you are a .NET 2.0 developer, you do not need to learn .NET 3.5 to pass Exam 70-536; conversely, if you are a .NET 3.5 developer, you do not need to review .NET 2.0 to pass the exam."

So I am not sure why you are worried about 3.5 vs 4.0 or why you think the current certification is for 3.5. Since I am studying for this exam as well I'd like to know if I missed something here.

Igor Ivanov 2010-02-07 03:31:55

You didn't miss anything. The exam is applicable to both .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5. They are likely emphasizing that it doesn't matter which you know since it used to be named "Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Application Development Foundation" and now they dropped the "2.0" and made it applicable to both framework versions. In fact, the exam number hasn't changed and if you took the 2.0 titled one you could move on to the 3.5 track and it would still count.

Ahmad Mageed 2010-02-07 04:13:40

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Is there any point starting .NET 3.5 certification now?

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