Why is there so much OOP on the ColdFusion Certification Test?

A few weeks ago someone posted in the CFML Slack asking questions about the Adobe ColdFusion Certification Program. This is a portion of their questions. (It has been edited for brevity and privacy for the original author as my intent here isn't to single out anyone.)

 

Has anyone else taken the CFML Specialist course? I just finished the exam for it. The exam I took was nothing like the course material that I had. It was also presented very different in the emails as far as open book / resources. The proctor only let me have access to the Adobe website. Additionally, the exam I took was about 60% focused on OOP questions, and not ColdFusion itself. This was really frustrating as it’s not the content I was studying or preparing to test on.

 

I responded to this in Slack and am sharing my response here as well:

I can't speak about why the proctor only let you use the Adobe website. However I was part of the team that helped Adobe create the new ColdFusion Certification exam so...

There is no 1 set test. The tests are randomly generated from a curated set of questions. The more important topics have a higher probability of being covered in the test so you're more likely to get asked about them.

All the questions were written and vetted by a team, and everything was also proofed and vetted again by a 3rd party specializing in making sure tests like this are high quality.

Also...

OOP is 100% absolutely important to modern web development and it should be tested well on any modern certification program like this. IMHO, if a developer is not super comfortable with basic OOP constructs (inheritance, interfaces, composition, etc) they are not qualified to call themselves a "senior" web developer. (This is my personal take -- Adobe may have a different answer for you.) This is true for ColdFusion, and any other web language with OOP features. Also, OOP has been the standard for literal decades now.

The training materials were written and produced by the same team that designed the test questions. Everything was worked on together to make sure the content is relevant. That being said, the training materials should all be considered review for people already writing quality code with the skills needed to pass such a test. It is not designed to take a junior (or legacy) developer and instantly give them modern senior developer skills -- this is unrealistic. However anyone actively trying to improve their craft can use the training materials as a guide and (combined with their own independent study) should have enough to pass the tests AND know how to apply those concepts in a real world situation.

As [redacted for privacy] mentioned in the blog posted linked above, there have been some questions here and there, and a few adjustments have been made. Nothing is perfect, but this certification program is import to Adobe (and the rest of us on the team that helped create it).


I suspect there was some miscommunication and some proctors were given bad (or outdated?) info about if the test is "open book" or not. Such questions can always be sent to Adobe or Carasoft to get sorted out.

Hope that helps!

That was my original response from several weeks ago. I still stand by it. And I've had the same thoughts about the importance of OOP for many years now -- this is true for CFML developers, and all the other OOP languages too.

Additionally, Adobe is revamping the ColdFusion Certification as I type this. And while this is in no way an official statement, I am certain that OOP content will be a very noticeable portion of the exam within the new revisions. There is literally no reason NOT to learn Object Oriented Programming; doing so will only be doing yourself a disservice.

Still unsure about OOP? Need some additional training to feel more comfortable with it? South of Shasta offers a variety of training classes and consulting services to help your team bridge the gap and become more modern.

Feel free to contact us and we'll set up a workshop for you and your team!

Happy coding,
Nolan