Now that I’ve graduated with my Software Engineering diploma and am in the working world I find myself thinking more and more about my career and future as a software developer.  I’ve been doing a lot of development with Microsoft .Net technologies in the past 2 years and that got me thinking about going after a certification like Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) then later upgrading to Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD).  The drive behind this thinking is make my skills official and proven in case I find myself looking for a job in the near future.

There seem to be three very distinct responses when I ask my colleagues about this subject, here they are:

• Many say to wait it out, get some solid experience then land a job with a company doing Software Engineering and then get them to foot the bill.

• Some say that there is no point in certification anymore because it is too easy to cheat with all the exam solutions that are available on the net.

• Then there is the group that is surprised that it has taken me this long (6 months) before I even started thinking about it.

I’m trying to gauge how much of a difference having a professional certification makes in the Software Engineering or Computer Programming fields.  In today’s job market it would logically make sense to me as every new, proven skill that you can add to a resume puts you that much higher on the list of potential candidates, but that is just the way my mind works.  Then, if I do decide to go out and take the exams, which ones do I take?  There’s the obvious .Net from my current work experience, but I’ve also done a lot of work with Java and I’m sure there’s something out there for C++ developers.

What I’m really hoping for is that some industry experts will find their way here and give me their perspectives on the value of professional certifications for programmers in today’s workplace. 

Any responses, good or bad, are greatly appreciated and will be posted back to the site.

I know I don’t normally do this, but I was reading This Article the other day after a visit to SlashDot and found that it made a lot of sense from my experience in the tech industry so far.

The main focus of the article is how companies need to embrace and encourage their creative types in order to succeed in the long term. It uses plenty of examples from SAS to make it’s point.

It’s all too true that most companies today try to cram their creative thinkers into a mold and force them to work within such tight controls. I really think that if creative people like myself were given more flexibility that would allow for our creative ways there would be a lot fewer burned out people and a lot less companies that are fighting to maintain their bottom lines.

Then again, that’s just my opinion, take it or leave it, just thought I would share the article with you.

I was just over on Slashdot where I learned that Amazon has been awarded a patent on an algorithm that uses a customer’s viewing history to generate recommendations for products. While I do like Amazon and have bought many things from them, as a developer these sort of patents scare me.

Unfortunately, where I work I don’t end up doing any sort of innovative or experimental work, there simply isn’t enough time for that in our project schedules. In my spare time however I like to keep my skills fresh by taking a problem and seeing if I can develop a solution for it, just to prove to myself that I can. I also keep these experiments around in case a potential employer is less than impressed by my relatively boring VB apps from my current job.

Now my concern is this, am I expected as an independant developer to research all the applicable patents in a certain problem domain before I proceed with these experiments? Am I liable if one of my solutions happens to be similar to one that has been patented by a corporation? In software there are so many completely correct ways to do the EXACT same thing that drawing a solution between one of my designs and somebody else’s is a difficult endeavour. In fact, as I sit here and write this I have thought of a couple of different ways one could achieve what Amazon just received a patent for, what if one of my ideas is similar to theirs?

Really in the end, I just want to know if I should be worried about some company coming after me for an experiment that I did for myself to prove my skills? I don’t plan on selling any of this stuff.