Nokia Qt Certification

I passed my last planned MCPD certification exam on 24 November 2011 (70-519, Pro: Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4) and became Microsoft Certified Professional Developer.

 

Also I had an opportunity to become Nokia Qt Certified Specialist on 28 November 2011, I passed 2 exams - 010-002: Qt Essentials and 022-001: Core C++ for Qt developers. 

  

So I can compare some aspects of Nokia Qt and Microsoft Professional Developer certifications.

M	N
Available at least since 1993	Since 2010
Score report contains exact received points + information of strength and weak topics, what should be improved	Currently - just Pass or Fail, by forum - might be improved in future
Notification from the company is received on the next day (as exam is provided at a special test service partner - might take some time)	The same
No paper certificate by default, PDF or XPS can be downloaded from a special MCP site, paper certificate can be ordered for an additional money	Certificate is delivered in 4-6 weeks
It is possible to check status anytime on the special site: mcp.microsoft.com, available almost immediately (see 2 rows above)	No any special site, it should be possible to add a special badge to account on developer.qt.nokia.com site by an additional request. For me - request is sent more than 1 week ago, still no any reaction/reply
A lot of different exams	Qt without Widgets seems is impossible, despite of QML is a modern way. I hope it will be improved later for Qt5

So briefly, Nokia Qt Certification is not mature enough, and I hope it will be significantly improved in future.

Anyway preparations for exams helped me to recall some topics and concentrate my knowledge.


So both certification paths - MCPD (MCTS) and Nokia Qt Developer/Specialist are really useful for developers.

Microsoft Certification Preparation

Due to the Nokia switch to Windows Phone - I got an opportunity to become MCPD by my company.
I am still mostly working with Linux and Qt, but Nokia, Nokia... :)
Here is my notes about different book as preparation materials on my way to Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD).
(I decided to become certified Web Developer 4 on Visual Studion 2010 as I think the mobile devices' future is really tightly related to Web/Cloud)
Book images might be blocked by ad blocker, but this is the only way to get legal images which I know, so please take my apologies :)

Exam 70-513.
Technology Specialist: Windows Communication Foundation Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

• There are no Microsoft Press books currently available.
  So I decided to take a look to the book for previous version of the exam, 70-503 for .NET 3.5. It is really outdated and can be used for preparations for this exam just in case if you really have enough time, a lot of subjects are not covered at all.
• Professional WCF 4: Windows Communication Foundation with .NET 4.
  Quite good book to recall some part related to the topic and improve knowledge, but does not cover everything what is needed for the exam. Otherwise the book itself can not be considered as something useful for specialists, it is mostly 'for beginners'.

Exam 70-516.
Technology Specialist: Accessing Data with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

• Official book.
  Really useful and "must have" for such exam. Just Entity Framework is described quite briefly.
• Pro Entity Framework 4.0 (Expert's Voice in .NET).
  Really nice book about Entity Framework. The author real is a professional and expert. Also "must have", as Entity Framework knowledge is really needed to pass the exam.

It was the most complex exam for me, despite of both "must have" books here. :)

Exam 70-515.
Technology Specialist: Web Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4

• Again official book.
  Some general info. Quite good, but I think - definitely not enough to pass the exam. But I do not know what else might be used here.

Exam 70-515.
Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4

• 70-519 Exam Ref.
  I am still preparing to this exam, but seems it is a nice book which I would like to use to prepare.

I am not sure can I say anything exam content, but I just want to advice - use any available test simulations (at least that which are available on MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit disks), does not matter how strange they are.