Hi,

a) what's the point in becoming MCAD (Microsoft Certified Application
DEVELOPER) when you don't want to become a developer? If you just want
to learn the language, it's probably cheaper to just buy book...

b) MCAD covers .net 1.1, there are MCTS certifications for .net 2.0.
Depends on what you want. As I understand it, MCTS certification does
NOT automatically include MCAD.

c) MCAD != MCPD. MCSD = MCPD

Thorsten

   If you are mostly looking to learn the language, forget about
certification. The certification exams ask mainly about the Framework
Libraries and development environment in general. They contain virtually
nothing about the language itself.

I would second Alberto P's comment that the certifications will not help you
learn the language, itself. However, I suspect you really mean that you are
wanting to learn "how to program in .NET using C# as your language of
choice." Even if that's not what you really meant, it should be :-) because
much of what you'll be doing is leveraging the .NET Framework. It's more
reasonable for anyone programming in .NET to consider themselves as "a .NET
programmer" rather than a "C# programmer" or "<insert .NET language here>
programmer." Once you learn how the Framework hangs together and get
proficient in one .NET language, it's a matter of days to get productive
with another .NET language.

But back to your question... reading a bit into your question you seem to be
wanting to focus your efforts on "in the trenches" development efforts (as
opposed to design and architecture issues). Given that, I'd suggest going
for the MCTS for 2.0. I recently passed 70-536, and suspect that it covers
the sorts of topics you are looking to gain more knowledge on. Back that
MCTS effort up with some real projects and you'll certainly be on your way.

Finally, you'll probably get bunch of responses here from folks who will
totally downplay the whole certification process - or even tell you that it
will be an utter waste of your time and that you shouldn't even try to get
certified (Mark Rae comes to mind on that one). As those viewpoints come in,
consider that they are mostly correct - ASSUMING that they are addressing
the perception that certification makes you an expert in the subject matter,
or that you have cheated in order to pass the exams. The certification
process certainly won't make you an expert. If you, however, are looking to
the certification process to help you learn the landscape of topics beyond
what you would encounter during your day-to-day life, then go for it. It
also gives you *some* reference point for how well you have prepared for the
exam - which hopefully correlates with what you know about the subject
matter. Unfortunately that correlation often isn't very high, as the exams
frequently fail to measure a whole bunch of stuff that you *do* know what is
within the subject matter domain... and some of the questions are outright
bad - meaning that they cannot possibly do a good job of measuring what they
are supposed to be measuring.

Bottom line, IMHO, is that anyone can benefit from the certification process
provided that (1) they don't believe it will make them into an expert; (2)
don't take your exam score seriously - AT ALL - whether you pass, fail,
score high, or score low; and (3) understand that 99% of the benefit of the
certification process is the time you spend preparing for the exams -
PROVIDED that you don't simply cheat and memorize the real exam questions
available at the so called "brain dumps" web sites. That is, the benefit is
mostly in honest preparation by using the exam preparation guides as simply
a list of topics you should focus your attention on - culminating in a
passing score which, again, will be mostly meaningless at the end of the
day. FWIW, I have passed 17 Microsoft certification exams (resulting in MCSD
in both COM and .NET, MCAD, MCSE, MCSA, MCDBA with both SQL Server 7 and
2000 exams), and I have an academic background in psychometrics. Based in my
personal experience I can tell you that all those certs certainly do NOT
equate to expertise - that only comes with real-world experience.

-S