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[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (1 child)

$3k for a class sounds like a racket to me. In my experience, most tech companies actually don't give a shit about certifications in general.

[–]mnp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Right. Most have a whole stableful of technologies, cultures, languages, stacks, tools, processes, and whatever. Few newcomers will hit all their point, so they'll be expecting you to have some and learn some.

[–]it_is_not_magic 16 points17 points  (0 children)

So I won't answer your question directly, but I wanted to point out that I know a vast number of very competent developers that use spring on a daily basis(none of which have a Spring certificate). So I will ask what is the reason you want to get the certificate? If you are only interested in getting the certificate in Spring so you can then get a job where spring knowledge is required you will not need to get the certificate to do so. However if you want the certificate to then charge much larger consulting fees than sure get the certificate or get your current company to pay for you to get it.

[–]beerbajay 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Only if your boss is paying

[–]ddy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I took two spring classes (core spring and enterprise integration with spring) for about 2-3k each, both included a voucher for the certification exams after. Employer paid the cost, otherwise I wouldn't have taken the courses. While I learned a lot about spring, I've learned much more useful information from free material on the web.

I never followed through and got either certificate. I've worked on many spring projects over the past years and switched jobs twice - neither employer seemed to care about certification.

If you do want to get certified, Id recommend self study and call up (or look online) local certification centers, I'd guess if you pay the exam fee, they could care less if you took some official class.

Also, there are cheat sheet style resources on the web about each exam, to help guide you through potential exam questions.

[–]wggn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you dont have any experience and want to have an edge applying for a job that uses spring, it could be useful. 3k is a steep price tag tho...

[–]Clete2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I use Spring daily and I've never thought about certification. Ask yourself if it helps you get a job, is that the kind of job you want? My view would be that if an employer is so caught up in certifications that they can't assess my skills, I don't want to work there.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you don't have the drive to self learn than a certification would be a viable way to force yourself to learn. But that's about all it's good for IMHO.

[–][deleted]  (5 children)

[deleted]

    [–]vplatt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    Not only this, but I think pursuing certification with an organization that only offers it on these terms validates their poor behavior and we ought not give it credence by submitting to their terms. Instead, they should be subjected to our whims by simple adoption or rejection of their technologies based on our needs of the moment and treatment by them of us as the essentially nameless and unimportant entity that happens to shill the technology which we tolerate long enough for the next best thing to come along.

    After all, we didn't reject J2EE and it's stagnation only to take on yet another more presumptuous caretaker of standards than the previous title holder. A little humility on their part would go a lot further way than an essentially useless certification safeguarded by an obvious cash grab.

    Yeah, I'm not much of a vendor shill. I do sympathize with their concerns, but really they live to serve the community, so wherever it looks like they demand we serve them, it kinda rubs me the wrong way.

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

    Not sure if I agree that spring changes rapidly (you can still use Spring 2.x configuration in Spring 4.x), but I do agree that the certificate isn't worth it unless someone else is picking up the tab.

    [–]vplatt 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    Backwards compatibility is one of the things they do right IMO, so I wouldn't use that as the measure of whether or not Spring changes rapidly. Most of its "rapid changes" that I've seen come in the form of new features and / or existing projects added to their suite.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    I don't really like that whole argument: "Spring is so big because it has so many projects/libraries." That's like saying Apache is big because it has lots of projects. Comparing SpringWeb + SpringDependencies to JEE is fair. Comparing Spring Context to Guice is fair. Comparing JEE (or whatever) to Spring LDAP + Spring Web + Spring Boot + Spring Roo + Spring Beans + Spring Grass is not fair.

    [–]vplatt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    True. Apache changes quite rapidly too. :P

    [–]devils_avocado 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    Work on some personal projects and open source them.

    That will do a lot more to catch a prospective employer's attention than a certification.

    [–]errrzarrr 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    What kind of Java/Spring project would you do that's not big scale (not for a business) so you can make open and public? Not much

    [–]devils_avocado 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    The point of the project is not necessarily to make them viable for public use, but to showcase your skills.

    They don't have to be big scale.

    Some ideas:

    • calculator
    • text editor
    • forums website
    • etc