DC Housing Market versus 70-320
This weekend we purchased a condo in the Washington DC area and I passed the Microsoft 70-320 exam ("Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework"). The natural question for any techie then would be: which was harder?
Let's weigh up the contenders:
DC House Purchase
- Compete with at least 10 other bidders on any property
- Pay $50k+ more than asking price
- Waive all contingencies in your offer (inspection, financing, appraisal)
- Sweat it out and possibly still not even come close
70-320 Preparation
- Learn a lot about COM Interop, COM+ and Enterprise Services
- Delve into security permissions, roles and wonder which of our clients would ever be satisfied with 'off the shelf' security
- Reading up on .NET Remoting intricacies that make your brain hurt
- Find out that SOAP extensions are pretty common and are basically required reading for this exam - so much for thinking we were so smart!
I used this book for my preparation and spent some time doing the practice exams that come with the accompanying CD.
Discussion
The exam was difficult since it tests some things that I just don't use in my day to day work - we seldom work with COM or COM+. The level of questions in this exam also seemed much higher than 70-315 and there were some trick questions. However, the examiners still need to focus more on the understanding of concepts and how people apply knowledge rather than specifics. I don't see the value in testing whether you know the name of a particular method within a class.
The winner
I think the house purchase was harder due to the emotional rollercoaster involved since the outcome affects your life for the next 7 years (US average?) but the exam was a worthy adversary especially on the same weekend! :-)