Passed Salesforce Platform Developer 1 – thoughts and take aways

So I had it on my V2MOM all last financial year to complete the Salesforce Platform Developer 1 certification which although is an optional certification for me was something I wanted to try and tackle. So I signed up for the exam in the beginning of January but before I could take it the exam was cancelled. It appeared that the questions and answers to the exam had been leaked online (well duh!) so my exam was cancelled until a new and updated exam was ready. So I waited and one day I was asked whether I wanted to try the beta exam of the new certification. It did involve me having to go to a testing center in person (I normally do them remotely proctored) but I agreed and took the exam.

So to call this a new exam is quite an overstatement.

Now I didn’t do the old exam but I’m pretty sure they simply shuffled the questions and rewrote a few. The exam is (still) VERY VisualForce heavy and peppered with weird Apex question that in my opinion doesn’t really fit the prevue of this being an entry level certification. There is VERY little Lightning which I found a bit odd with VisualForce being considered Legacy in my book and component based development using Lightning being the status quo and future. But alright who I am I to judge…

So it being a beta exam I didn’t get the result right away as you normally do but I did pass it which I consider more luck than anything else. What I really wanted to share here is that Platform Developer 1 is (still) a legacy exam and solid working knowledge of VisualForce is required. Forget about Lightning – VisualForce is the name of the game for this exam. I did share some constructive feedback about the exam internally and I would really like to see the current Platform Developer 1 certification being parked and marked as legacy and a truly new exam being brought to light. This exam should bring Apex and Lightning to the forefront maybe springling in a few questions on VisualForce.

My real point here is that no developer new to the platform will ever – or should have to – learn VisualForce. Crossing my fingers for a new / additional exam.