jun :: realeyes

Well…I took the plunge and got certified in Flex. Now that I have, it’s time to give my opinion.

Before proceeding any further, I’ d like to say , if you’ve just read Flex books and haven’t done a lick of code…don’t even bother with this exam.

Also, if you’ve written a lot of code and haven’t spent too much time in the help docs or any Flex books, I would say that it would definitely not hurt to at least do some skimming. You’ll know when you’re successful with skimming when you notice yourself saying, “oh yeah forgot about that one” or “wow, I’ve never seen or used that before”

I’ve taken plenty of vendor certs before (MCSE 4.0, CFMX 7, etc.) and would have to say that my impression of the exam is that it was well rounded, not too inaccessible, and had a good question/time ratio. In other words, I got through the questions without feeling rushed and while I was reviewing the ones I had marked for review, the session timed out. Best word of advice is not to dilly-dally on the questions you’re not sure on.

As far as the content in the exam, all I have to say is that it was well rounded. In the test you’re dealing with UML, J2EE, FDS, Charting, AS3, MXML, OOP, Software Architecture, and anything else Flex you can think of. (Reference Topic areas and objectives in the Prep Guide) The Flex product line is huge, the Framework is gi-normous, and having to worry about software architecture, OOP, and actual AS3 coding practices All I have to say is bravo to Adobe on the breadth of the question pool.

So…if I haven’t scared you from taking the test, here are my recommendations:

1. No joke, make sure you are comfortable with every bullet in the exam prep guide

2. Write some apps, c’mon people.

3. Take some training

4. If training is not an opportunity for you, then definitely check out Adobe Press book Adobe Flex 2 Training from the Source I COMPLETELY agree on this one with both Daniel and Angus good job guys, thanks for the tip!

5. Actually, skimming through the Training from the Source book and taking a note of the tips, section heading blurbs, and code examples is a good refresher even if you had a chance to train. (Btw, the link in #4 above will take you to four downloadable chapter excerpts)

6. Grab a copy of the detailed exam specs. Everyone referred to it in their blog, but I could not find a downloadable version of the pdf…however, being the cool search engine that Google is, I did get a hold of a cached HTML copy…

[JCH: Updated 3/19/08 START] http://office.realeyesmedia.com/blogs/jun/samples/certification/Flex20Blueprint.htm 

[JCH: Updated 3/19/08 END]

7. Go for it!

Anyway, hope this is helpful to someone…let’s get Flexified ya’ll!