Microsoft Certification Advice : Silverlight path

Question

I apologize if this title is misleading. I already know that Microsoft isn't planning on releasing a Silverlight certification due to their quick development cycles (please correct me if I am wrong). I have started a new job that places a lot of emphasis on Microsoft Certifications, as of late I have been doing Microsoft Silverlight development in C#. I know Silverlight is more of a Web-Based platform compared to WPF but I was thinking maybe I should get my certification in .NET 4 C# Windows Development 70-511 (which covers WPF). I know the basics of C# and OOP principles, but also want to be relevant to Silverlight. I am assuming that there are enough similarities between Silverlight and WPF to do this. I realize I would put some extra study into WPF, but since the Microsoft Silverlight Certification doesn't exist do you think this would be a good alternative? Does the "Developer Community" place credence on a WPF certification if a Silverlight certification is being sought after?

Thanks for your help guys.

Answer 1

Since there isn't (yet?) a Silverlight certification, I suspect that not a lot of companies are requiring it :-). But yes, if you'd like to get a closely-related certification, WPF would be the place to start. There are very important differences between the two technologies, but they are much more similar than they are different. If you were to ask, "Comparing Winforms, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, WPF and Silverlight, which two most closely resemble each other?" the answer is pretty clear. Much (though not all) of what you learn about WPF, especially regarding MVVM as an underlying architecture, will translate to Silverlight.

The downside (as another answer has pointed out) is that there isn't a specific WPF exam for VS2010. The closest is 70-511, which covers desktop technologies generally. Nevertheless, because programming Silverlight is more like desktop than web programming (with important differences, obviously), it's still the one I'd recommend. But make sure you get the WCF 70-513 exam as well, since effective Silverlight development requires a pretty good knowledge of WCF as well.

Answer 2

The issue is that WPF is now combined with WinForms in the VS2010 certification exams. However knowing WPF and WinForms will open up more jobs to you.

Also think about the Asp.Net certification, as a lot of jobs ask for Silverlight and Asp.net.

Are you using WCF on the server side, if so you could consider the *WCF certificatio*n.

If you are doing any SqlServer work that is another option for certification.

(I think having no certification for Silverlight is an error on Microsoft Part)

Answer 3

This just in: it looks like MS will be adding a Silverlight exam (70-506) starting January 2011. See: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exam.aspx?ID=70-506&Locale=en-us#tab1