What Are We Planning for .NET 3.0?

Published 08 December 06 10:39 AM

So this is a question that has come up a few times in recent history and after several conversations about the matter, I wanted to let you know what's on the roadmap. First, let me highlight the major takeaways from the discussions on our strategy.

  • When talking about .NET 3.0, we are referring to the 3 major technologies that formed the API suite formerly known as WinFX (WCF, WPF, WF)
  • .NET 3.0 describes a set of technologies. The professional level skills for building web and Windows applications (such as the skills for evaluating tradeoffs between performance and scalability, for example) remain relatively unchanged – at least in the near term.
  • A technology specialist credential should be tightly coupled to a specific version of a specific technology. This most clearly identifies the specialty of the credential holder. It additionally aligns with the TS vision of tying the lifetime of the credential to the lifetime of the technology from a product support standpoint.
  • While some of the .NET 3.0 APIs will eventually overtake the existing .NET 2.0 APIs in use – particularly WPF and WCF, this will not happen immediately, and the .NET 2.0 mechanisms for building applications are not going away for quite some time.

Therefore, here's the plan.

  • We will plan to release between 2-3 Technology Specialist exams – each exam will yield a TS credential. We are still deciding whether or not we should group WF with WCF in one exam (hence '2-3'). You're feedback on this last point would be very useful.
  • We are not planning on changing the professional level exams at this time.
  • We will plan on developing new TS credentials for technologies (such as ASP.NET) that are affected as a part of the Visual Studio "Orcas" release.

So I know that there has been a lot of confusion surrounding the upgrade story into the new generation certs (more on that later). The good news here is that the upgrade story is simple – there's not one. Simply put, a Technology Specialist credential should assert that the possessor has a certain level of ability in using a specific release of a Microsoft technology. Therefore, you're never "upgrading" your TS credentials – just achieving new ones.

That said, the question of the professional level credentials is a little more complicated, but I think that I'll save that for another day.

by hdierking
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# Stefano Demiliani said on December 8, 2006 2:18 PM:

Great news guys, I was worried but this post explains wel your strategy (that I agree a lot).

Regarding grouping WF with WCF on a single TS exam, I don't agree: WF is a technology that can be part of a winform and a web application, so why not releasing a stand-alone TS certification (one exam)?

# STEFANO DEMILIANI said on December 8, 2006 2:25 PM:

Certification planning for .NET 3.0

# Austin said on December 8, 2006 2:34 PM:

I agree with Stefano, grouping WF and WCF doesn't seem to make sense to me.  Being an expert in WF and what it can do can be a very valuable skill without needing to delve into WCF at all.  And vice versa.

One test per W*F seems ideal.  But I'm curious if there are any plans to do a CardSpace-specific TS?  It is, after all, a part of .NET 3.0 even if it doesn't get nearly the press of the other three items.

# Dan Kahler said on December 15, 2006 10:33 AM:

I'm very glad to hear that you're planninig to create TS exams for .NET 3.0.  To me, it makes sense. However, I think combining WF and WCF into a single TS exam would be an exceptionally poor choice.  They're complimentary technologies, but it's possible to build tremendous solutions by leveraging each technology independently.  

IMO, the WCF exam would be a more coherent evolution of exam 70-529, and the WF exam would be a new, separate exam.  WF has a broad enough scope that I'd expect it to be easy to create a objective domains that support a pool of 150 "production-quality" exam questions.  if these technologies were combined into a single exam, it would be extremely difficult to create objectives that tested a candidate's ability to apply both technologies in the real world, since you'd have to limit the scope of the objectives.

# "So, a booth babe and a geek walk in to a bar..." said on January 3, 2007 3:28 PM:

Howard just posted this, good info. http://blogs.msdn.com/howard_dierking/archive/2006/12/08/what-are-we-planning-for-net-3-0.asp

# Mathias said on January 3, 2007 5:02 PM:

I'm also against grouping WCF and WF exams. It often makes sense to use them together, but they are completely different technologies.

Mathias

(still waiting for the results of 7 beta exams...)

# Mighell's blog said on January 3, 2007 6:15 PM:

Lorenzo segnala qui questo post in cui si parla delle certificazioni su .NET 3.0. La cosa che mi ha colpito

# Bryant Likes said on January 3, 2007 9:37 PM:

+1 for 3 exams (You can be a WF expert without knowing WCF)

# Kevin Daly said on January 4, 2007 2:44 AM:

I'd just like to chime in with everybody else who's against grouping WF+WCF in one exam...not only is it not a self-evident combination, but it could confuse people's understanding of the relative status of the 3 APIs (this could get eerily similar to the early debates about the relationship between the persons of the Holy Trinity, so I'm going to shut up now)

# Mehran Nikoo said on January 4, 2007 6:19 AM:

I am strongly against grouping WCF and WF credentials too. Mering those two into a single credential defeats the purpose of the TS credentials (which are technology focussed). One may be an expert in WCF but never need to learn or use WF and vice versa.

# Chris said on January 12, 2007 1:31 AM:

Please don't group WF and WCF - it doesn't make sense from a technology point of view (one can be expert in the first but newbie in the last) - it doesn't do justice to the TS program and it will discourage people who lack skills in one of both to take exams.  No benefits from doing this in my humble opinion.  Chris

# Carlo Garcia said on January 12, 2007 5:40 AM:

I also believe that WF and WCF should definitly be seperate TS certifications.

# Alfred Myers said on January 12, 2007 7:10 AM:

My two cents:

Keep WCF and WF separated.

The reason was already said by the previous commenters

# How things (should) work said on January 12, 2007 7:16 AM:

Os planos sobre a certificação .NET Framework 3.0 já começaram a vazar e você tem a chance...

# André Lima said on January 12, 2007 10:28 AM:

I completely agree with what the people here already commented...

Grouping the two exams, from my point of view, is nonsense...

# Evangelos Hadjichristodoulou said on January 13, 2007 10:40 AM:

Keep WF and WCF seperate exams!

# Tareq Al-Saifi said on January 23, 2007 1:18 AM:

WCF & WF should be separated in two different exams; they have different conscepts even if they are used together in solutions

# Sandeep Sachan said on February 3, 2007 11:58 AM:

Thnx... For givin des kind of info so that i could change ma way acord rit nw i hav just clear ma grd. so it would b gr8 newz to here...

really thax.

# john said on February 26, 2007 3:33 AM:

When will this certifications come out?

# Iain Wade said on March 20, 2007 12:03 AM:

Thanks for the info Howard.

How will the new TS certs realted to ASP.net (orcas) fit into the requirements for MCPD: web apps?

# hdierking said on March 25, 2007 10:59 PM:

Hi Iain - I'm going to post this as a new entry since I'm betting it will become a frequently asked question in the coming months.

# John Coleman said on April 4, 2007 10:15 PM:

I think WF and WCF should absolutely be different...  I love WCF and have been putting it in production environments since the Go Live, but that WF seems SO worthless to me and you'll probably never see be care about it at all.

# John Chapman said on April 27, 2007 3:56 PM:

I think combining WF and WCF would be a very bad idea. There is more than enough terrritory in WCF to deserve its own exam.

# James peckham said on June 11, 2007 9:50 PM:

i know this is sortof a necro post, but any word on when there will be .net 3.0 mcts paths? I'm excited to test on wcf and wpf.

# hdierking said on June 12, 2007 4:35 PM:

Hi James - WCF and WPF are being released under the 3.5 banner (since the RTM designers are shipping with Orcas).  You'll see an announcement from me soon about the more concrete timeframe.

# Andy Mackie said on June 19, 2007 12:31 PM:

So will there be separate .NET 3.0 & 3.5 certs, or is it a jump straight from 2.0 to 3.5 ?

Mind you, we'll probably see .NET 4.0 and 5.0 before I've finished my 2.0 exams!!

# Frank said on August 6, 2007 2:28 PM:

I would love to see WCF and WF combined into one certificate. I would personally not want to prepare for a seperate WF exam. I HAVE OTHER THINGS TO DO THAN PREPARING FOR EXAMS. Just like shampoo + condition saves time, WCF + WF will also save us time.  As for a seperate cardspace certficate... nonono.

# Anthony Steele's Blog said on September 5, 2007 11:35 AM:

On the basis that I want to pick up another Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) exam, and

# Anthony Steele's Blog said on September 5, 2007 11:48 AM:

I have been looking at the training materials for exam 70-529: Distributed Application Development with

# Sergey said on September 18, 2007 6:54 PM:

I would prefer to take the exams on WF and WCF separately, since they are two different, although closely related technologies.

# Umapathy said on November 19, 2007 6:05 AM:

Both WF and WCF should be in two different exams. that should be great

Umapathy

# Sandeep said on December 10, 2007 5:33 PM:

Its been a while now, I have not seen any certification for .NEt 3.0?

Please let me know if there are any updates.

# Gerry O'Brien said on December 12, 2007 2:36 PM:

Hi Sandeep.

The certification story for 3.0 has changed to reflect the way 3.5 will be implemented.

Please see my blog post on the VS 2008 certifications here, http://blogs.msdn.com/gerryo/archive/2007/11/16/visual-studio-2008-cert-story-almost-complete.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

Gerry

# Marc Wentink said on February 8, 2008 5:29 AM:

Will the new ASP.NET exam, number 70-562 have something of new Ajax technologies in it? Something 'bling bling' for my resume comparing to 70-528

# jayashree said on October 16, 2008 4:56 AM:

I need asp.net 2.0 MCTS certification  pass out compulsory , before MCTS 3.5 or I can go directly for ASP 3.5

# hdierking said on October 16, 2008 11:08 AM:

Hi all - as I'm no longer in the cert group, please check out http://blogs.msdn.com/gerryo/ for all cert-related questions/comments.

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About hdierking

I am currently the Editor-in-Chief for MSDN Magazine. I joined Microsoft in 2006 as a product planner with the certification team at Microsoft Learning. Prior to that, I spent my career as a developer and later as an architect. My main technology passions include pretty much anything on language theory, agile development, and service-oriented architecture.
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