This is the 3rd set of Zend Certification Tips and Advice to help anyone taking either of the two Zend Exams powered by Zend Technologies: the Zend PHP Certification Exam and/or the Zend Framework Certification Exam. The aim being to help people who want to sit for those exams and inform them what it is all about & what to expect by hearing it from (pro) PHP Guys who have already been through it, that is => Hear It From Zend Certified Engineers!

He starts off with some general questions to Eric about the exam and its structure and how he prepared himself for it. He mentions some of the resources he used to study and what kind of topics to pay attention to. There's also a few quotes included at the end giving another perspective on the exam (specifically, some frustrations).

This is the 1st set of Zend Certification Tips and Advice to help anyone taking either of the two Zend Exams powered by Zend Technologies: the Zend PHP Certification Exam and/or the Zend Framework Certification Exam. The aim being to help people who want to sit for those exams and inform them what it is all about & what to expect by hearing it from (pro) PHP Guys who have already been through it, that is.

There's a long list of questions in the interview covering a wide range of things about the test everything from what its about out to some of Michelangelo's own opinions about the tests:

• Can you briefly give us an idea of what ZC is about, what it tries to achieve?
• Can you give us an idea of what need to be studied and what kind of stuffs we should expect..etc
• Parts of the modules that you think is more complex and one should pay special attention to?
• What TWO questions can you remember that you can share with us
• Do you recommend PHP guys to get certified?

Check out the answers to these and more questions in the full interview.

Today I passed the exam to become a PHP 5.3 ZCE. Like everyone else I had to sign the non-disclosure contract so I can't go into detail about the questions that were asked, I can however tell my impressions of the exam and how prepared for it.

His preparations included going over some of the older sample tests and some additional study time on streams. He also mentions the PhpRiot iPhone/iPad application that helped him prepare as well as a few of the training courses he bought for certain topics. His overall impression of the exam was that it was more difficult, with plenty of open questions made for you to fill in an answer.

I recently took (and passed!) the ZCE 5.3 certification. I've been a Zend Certified Engineer (5.0) for nearly 3 years, and I know a lot more about PHP today than I did then. Today I speak and write various things related to PHP, and also teach all sorts of topics including PHP certification. I thought I'd share my thoughts on the ZCE, and I'll write a follow-up post on how to prepare for it.

She talks about the changes Zend has made to the contents of the 5.3 version of the test including the removal of the "differences between PHP4 and PHP5" section. She mentions some of the resources she found to help her along the way to testing success and what the general format of the exam was like. In her opinion, the worth of the test lies in the work done to prepare for it, growing your PHP knowledge along the way. The actual piece of paper resulting from the test could, unfortunately, be more of a result of getting the "right" or "wrong" questions that could be confusing.

Today I've passed the Zend Framework Certification exam and with that I can finally close my new years resolution for 2010: doing 12 (tech related) exams in 2010. So I've seen a lot of exams, good ones and bad ones and I want to share with you my experience by creating a top-5 of must-have certifications for PHP programmers...

He suggests that certifications are a good way to prove your knowledge to others like customers or colleagues. He talks about the exams and certifications he's taken this year (20 of them) and some of the things he's learned along the way:

• Like unit-testing, mocking is everything.
• Failing is not a shame
• Don't do what I do, unless you know what you are doing.
• The top-5 of certifications that every PHP should have (according to me)

First of all, the exam is quite complex, yet it's pretty much easy to pass if you're writing PHP code using latest additions like namespaces, late static binding or lambda functions. Even if you do not use these techniques in your code, but you're aware of them and saw PHP syntax for those features (including restrictions like "namespace" keyword proper placement), it would not be a problem for a candidate to pass Zend PHP 5.3 exam.

He includes a few things that could trip you up in the exam including questions one differences in file system functions and some that were just, as he puts it, "stupid." (some were matters of opinion)

Before starting the exam, I had to sign a non-disclosure contract with Zend Technologies, Inc. to keep the contents to myself, so don't ask me what questions were asked. I can write a short article on how I prepared myself to pass the exam and what you can do to achieve the same successful outcome.

He gives links to and mentions several of the resources he used to learn all he needed like the official Zend PHP 5.3 Certification Guide, the PHP.net site for reference on several sections that were more PHP 5.3-specific (like namespaces, DateTime and Streams).

Summer is upon us, which means that the annual Zend/PHP Conference (ZendCon), the world's largest gathering of the PHP community, is drawing near. Preparations are already in high gear, and you can make an impact on what fellow PHPers will wear in Fall of 2010! Submit your cool t-shirt designs or just cast your vote. The winning design will be used for the new 'official' PHP t-shirt. Every ZendCon attendee (and some others) will be getting the free t-shirt, and you get a free pass to the conference!

Besides the ticket to ZendCon, there's also two other prizes for the runners up - a free pass for a Zend Certification Exam (5.3) and a pass for a Zend Framework Certification Exam. There's about seven weeks left to submit your design and are currently eight entries on the list, so get your design in early to give it the best chance for the most votes. The submission round will end September 30th, so get your designs in soon!

Zend has recently teamed up with several of the top people in the PHP community to offer the PHP 5.3 Certification. It will be coming out in a few months, but before we can do that we need beta testers. That means YOU! If you want to participate all you need to do is fill out a quick qualification survey. These are the questions you will be asked (fill them out on the link, not on this page).

The survey will be open until July 15th (2010) and will ask you questions about your experience level with PHP overall and with PHP 5.3 as well as how much of your day is devoted to PHP and what best describes your role. If you'd like to give your feedback, go over and fill out the survey and get your name in.

Well, the only two official resources are a downloadable study guide and an instructor-led course. The study guide lists all the main areas of the framework that will be tested and offers a high level explanation of how they work. [...] I don't have any personal experience with the course, so I can't offer any specific comments on it. I have taken other courses from Zend, however, and the quality of those have been quite good.

He also points out this presentation from Rob Allen as another source. His recommendation, though, is that you read as much as possible from the Zend Framework's manual, but leaving out points on Zend_Tool and Zend_Application (they didint seem to make it into the test). He passed on the first try, so hopefully this advice, somewhat proven now, can help you down the right path.