Hurrah! I passed the Adobe Flex certification exam and can now call myself an Adobe Certified Professional Adobe Flex Developer (AFAIK that is the full title). Now its a small point but during the 5 days & nights (well one or two) studying for the exam I was under the impression that if successful I would be an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE). Imagine my surprise when on downloading the logo, this one…
I discover that I’m not an expert at all but a professional, an Adobe Certified Professional (ACP)! I can’t help feeling a slight tinge of disappoint. However, that and the scary Glasgow close (communal entrance) that the test centre was located up were the only downsides to taking the exam.
The exam was, as has been commented on elsewhere, quite wide ranging. Taking in J2EE & OO concepts, Design Patterns, UML and other stuff that you might not expect in a Flex Developer’s exam, although its all the better for it. Apart from refreshing my memory on a few things the most I got out of it was working with LCDS, the J2EE server app previously known as FDS. I had used Red5 in the past and intend to use BlazeDS soon so rather than just reading the docs and watching the Lynda.com videos, another top tip from the blogosphere, I thought I’d write a few example apps. I would definitely recommend this approach for this section of the exam. Thanks to Duane’s World for tips on how to install LCDS in Mac OS X.
Overall the biggest thanks goes to Jun who has a very handy detailed Flex Exam Specification on offer. This is a very good summary of the ins and outs of the exam. Something that is strangely missing, at least I couldn’t find it, from the official Adobe blurb.
As seems traditional in this type of blog entry I should tell you what my score was … well if I hadn’t done OK then I probably wouldn’t be telling you but 85% isn’t too bad is it?
Gerry McLarnon 