Microsoft Certificates (1)

I have been working with Microsoft technology since my internship. VB6 was then still common among many programmers (though, perhaps more among the amateurs). I have never found it a nice language. Especially because it was not object-oriented. Fortunately, the .NET Framework 1.0 came out. Since then I primarily develop in VB.NET. This has mainly to do with the environment: other programmers or managers who saw more in Visual Basic. I find the language itself in which programming is done not that interesting. As long as the principle is clear and the language is in the same area, learning another language is not that difficult. VB or C# also do not differ very much from each other.

To get back to the title: Microsoft Certificates. I have known .NET since the beginning and I am also very familiar with other Microsoft products (SharePoint, SQL Server). However, I have never bothered to get even one certificate. And I have noticed that it now breaking me up. Such a certificate proves that you can do what you say you can.

The caveat with this certificate is that it proofs the theoretical knowledge that you mastered. How you apply it eventually is a different story. Do you understand what the business wants? And how it works? As a software developer you also need to understand how processes run within a company. I think that this comes mainly with years of experience. When I started at TechnipFMC, I did not have much knowledge of business processes; now, that is much clear.

You can also ask better questions if, for example, a new SharePoint environment is set up. When I implemented the SharePoint environment back in 2007, it was not even a question if a site was needed per department; of course it was necessary. Now I would ask the question: do we need a site for each department or do we need a site for each end-to-end process? So instead of purchasing and finance (AP), it would be a Procure to Pay (P2P) site. And instead of sales and finance (AR) a Order to Cash (OTC) site.

The next post I will use to give an overview of all Microsoft certificates in general. After that I will post my plan to convert my knowledge into certificates.