Spring has definitely made my life easier. Not just on all of my side projects, but at work too. At this moment, I have all our domain objects and services wired and working via Spring-2.5. Mostly JPA, two JDBC Daos. A bunch of POJO services with some some basic transaction management. Client/Server, so some RMI invokers, and some JMS. Nothing too crazy. All of this took about 3 months. But I assure you, this would have taken double, maybe triple that time if I had to write any of real boilerplate junk. I’m not a fan-boy, just thankful.
Anyway, so you mightunderstand why I’d consider getting some level of SpringSource Certification. At only 150USD, it’s not that bad. Sun’s exams were about that, and more in some cases. Speaking of Sun’s certification, did it really help? I don’t mean just after you got it, but now. If you are a Sun certified JEE developer, and you’ve interviewed for a position in the past 3 years, do you believe having that certification helped you get a position? Maybe it did.
Personally, I fought with this between 2004 and 2006. In the end, I realized simply knowing your stuff probably goes a bit further. A reasonable technical interviewer will know exactly what to ask to weed out those lacking the required knowledge; certification or not. With that in mind, I wonder, how would I really benefit from the certification. Some might say, if it wont break your bank, do it. In some ways, this is like college: I know many who did not go to college, and are great at whatever they do. I also know some fellow CS alumni who are just rubbish.
I think the Sun certifications could be helpful for someone who doesn’t have a lot of Java experience, and their company is willing to pay for it. If you’re getting on-the-job experience, I don’t think it makes any difference in an interview.
Well said.
PS: Stop wording things so succinctly. It further illuminates how poor my writing style really is.
I tend to think that having Sun Certification gives you a leg up during the interview process. If you have two similar candidates with one having that certification if may sway the decision towards him/her.
I also think it’s a good way to see if this person is looking to learn and better themselves as well. A lot of people don’t bother because the tests are hard and it takes work to study for them. If your some grunt just pounding away at a keyboard you’re probably not interested in certifications.