Is Zend Certification "needed" before starting with the Zend Framework?

Question

Hi,

We're starting a new project using the Zend Framework, because the ideas and expandability speaks to us.

But now I'm wondering, should we first get some form of Zend Certification before starting with the Zend Framework? Will we miss fundamental yet basic groundrules if we just start "hacking away" using the Zend Framework?

I don't want to see us have to redo (part of) the project, because we missed some vital guidelines from the beginning, forcing us to rewrite our code.

If possible, I'd love to hear stories of others having used the Zend Framework, without certification, to see what limitations they ran accross.

Answer 1

Zend Certification is not needed. Afaik the exam covers ZF 1.5 and we are currently at 1.10 heading to 2.0. That's not to say the exam is worthless, because there is still many aspects that didn't change since 1.5. - nonetheless, you don't need it to get coding with ZF.

I suggest to go through the online reference guide and get a grip on how ZF's MVC works and maybe invest into the study guide PDF, but not the exam itself. If you run into trouble along the way, come here to ask.

Answer 2

As a rule I'd say to always plan to write one version to throw away when starting with any new technology. You will make mistakes, or at least write a sub-optimal implementation, the first time around. If you'd take the exam you'd spend time writing a project (or three) which will be thrown away afterwards as well.

The more experience you have with similar technologies, the better your first attempt will be. It's hard to make the first attempt perfect though, perfection comes only with practice.

I'd suggest you spend a week or so to make a mock version of your project to test the depth. It'll tell you how much you know or don't know about ZF. You'll stumble across all the problems you'll have to face eventually anyway, but you can just throw the code away and do it right the second time.

Answer 3

Obviously, the certification is not needed, it's not a driving or gun licence.

But passing the exams requires the same knowledge as needed to build a good, scalable application. Let's call learning to the exam that one version you throw away.

You may copy and paste the code and it will work, but to really understand all the stuff, some time is needed. The PDF version of ZF manual is a lot over 1000 pages.

Answer 4

How would you expect to pass the exam if you have never used the framework? To me this is enough reasons to just start using it. I doubt anyone could get certified without having done a good couple of projects with the framework.

Just do it!

Answer 5

I would recommend trying to find someone who worked extensively with this framework before to be hired or at least used as a consultant to help. We just started using ZF here and most of us did not knew about it but we were pretty clear from playing around with it doing tutorials and simple tests that it would be very helpful for us. Then hiring someone who has a lot of experience with it is of tremendous help to get the others who don't know it to be productive much sooner, it's really paying off on many levels.

So no, certification is not necessary, I do believe they have trainings though. Also, spend a lot of your own time doing the various tutorials you can find and also possibly get a gook on Zend (the Zend Framework In Action from manning is nice). But as the others said, you will make mistake with it and will want to re-do a lot of things, it's just part of what software development is; always happens that I look at old code I wrote and be like "Wow, what was I thinking ?!?!"

Good luck!