I decided to make my first blog entry of 2008 just be a few wishes for the new year in the hopes that Microsoft notices. The other hope is if enough of you agree and maybe make mention of them so that some changes may be brought about.
My biggest hope this year is that all of the programming classes be upgraded to use Visual Studio 2008. There are classes that Microsoft has on the books that still use the original release of Studio for .Net. There are instructors that have updated what they demo and there are some that don’t. I don’t like the idea that inconsistencies like this can crop up. It is their courseware for their products. As far as I am concerned, that makes it their responsibility to update or write new courses in a timely fashion.
The next wish for 2008 is that Microsoft change their plans for the 2008 certification track. It looks like they plan to do away with the MCSE and use the Technology Specialist/IT Professional options that have been replacing Microsoft’s other certifications. I understand their stated reasons. The newer certs are more targeted and therefore more flexible. It should also be a little easier to get various credentials since you will need fewer exams to get them. I get that. My problem is I like having an overall “marquis level” certification that show that you have a wider range of abilities. It just seems to me that instead of having to list that you are a TS with 6 or 7 specialties, it would be easier to have that one high level acronym.
My last wish is that Microsoft make sure that in the future, whenever they release a Workshop format class, they also come out with a fully taught version. A lot of the new programming classes that Microsoft released for Visual Studio 2005 were only in the Workshop format. The idea behind a workshop is that students do a lot more labwork so they can practice on their own. That is a good thing but the problem is, there is very little lecture material. This makes it incredibly difficult for a new student to learn using these classes. Either the instructor has to make up material to “teach” and the labs don’t get completed or the student feels they wasted their time because they could have studied a book at home. For some people the workshop is great and I don’t want them to be done away with. I simply want a lecture oriented equivalent so I can offer that as an option.
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