Wieland Gmeiner

tada johnson wrote:
Please note that the people in favour of the certification (like Dan) make money out of this.

Please note that, though in favour of that course/certification, do NOT make money out of this. It is imho simply a good course and a valuable certification.

Dan Fernandez wrote:
... Spring certification is a fantastic way of putting yourself above the crowd...

I can only second that. I've been applying for jobs on JEE projects the last year or so without success (no project experience), now I did the exam and a few days later I was accepted on a cool project based on Spring 3.0. As I'm doing Certs a) to learn, b) to be able to choose projects that I find interesting, for me it was already worth the investment in time and money.

Btw, the Springsource classes are very good, I also attended the Web Developer class after the core class, now preparing for the exam.

Passed :-)
So those 3 hours of sweat were not for nothing.

Sumit Vashistha wrote:
1. They have made the spring training mandatory for the certification, which is too costly but it includes the certification cost. So, anyone who has attended the training of Core Spring 3.x can give me idea how fruitful Is?

I recently attended the training. Though it was my first professional training class and I therefore can't compare, I can say the training was very professional prepared. The course material is very well structured, you always have one or two hours theory and then one hour practical lab to elaborate what you heard before. Especially the labs were very useful for gaining understanding. The teacher was very professional and skilled. I had only basic experience in Java and almost no in Java EE before but could follow the big picture and do all the labs to some extent. I think it is a very fruitful training. After the training I could jump right into a (paid) spring based project I'm working on now as a freelancer. Hope to get the Cert in a few weeks (learning is hard after a full work day, hope for time during christmas holidays).

Sumit Vashistha wrote:
2. Is the training worth considering the costs associated with it.

Well, if you do it just for fun, probably not. Maybe better to read the "Spring in Action" book and jump into some project to gain practice.
Given that the Spring Certs are valuable assets on the job market, especially for a freelancer, yes, it is.

Hope that helps,
Wieland