HR departments in general seem to be impressed by certifications; competent employers (i.e. the kind you want to work for) less so, and competent developers not at all. So, what it comes down to is more a question of what kind of shop you want to work for than whether the certifications will be of benefit.
In my opinion (having been in software development for 10 years, with no formal certifications) really the only way to learn how to use a given language or framework is to write something with it and put it into production. Even if it's just a toy project, it's critical to see something through from end-to-end to understand the technology.
The problem that I see with tutorials and certification programs is that they inevitably teach the "smooth path" usage of a tool, which you will inevitably depart from within the first 10 minutes when working on a real project. As someone who's been responsible for a number of hiring decisions, if you were applying for a server-side development project in my company I'd hire you on the spot if you could show me a functional, well-structured application and say "this is my work" and walk me through some of the design decisions in the source code and the problems encountered in packaging and deployment.
So, skip the certs and write something interesting to you in the language and framework you're interested in. It will be harder than getting the paper, but infinitely more valuable. |
