Hi Christine,
I can fully understand your thoughts and I fear that there is still no real answer to most points:
HTML5 is a new standard and Microsoft will support it. That is something, Microsoft commited already. But is this the end for asp.net? Or for Silverlight? There was rumors in the community but there are some other facts: Windows Phone 7 is using Silverlight
for non games! Nothing else! You have to use XNA or Silverlight when you target WP7. I doubt that Microsoft will stop support on it.
But then we have to look at the possibilities: When I develop on top of the windows platform: What possibilities do I have? I do not see any other solution! When you need full access on the operating system, Java is not really a choice you might choose.
So I stick to the technology and try to make the best out of it. It is not worth sitting down and thinking to much about the future. I work for a big company and all big companies seems to do one thing: They are rebuilding the internal structures. First I
was bothered, but after 5 years thinking "Ohh ... what migh the next 6 month bring?" I stopped being bothered and I just do my job (And I do that for much longer than these mentioned 5 years :) )
Regarding the exam:
Yes - the exam 70-515 (I think that is what you meant! Not 513!) still covers MVC2 (Microsoft might change that any time in the future without any further notice! So prepare yourself with MVC3, too!). This makes it a little outdated. But it is just one part
of the exam. It does not make the exam worthless in my eyes. Microsoft can do whatever they want: people will cry: If they update the exam, people will be mad at them ... and if they don't change we complain that the exam is outdated :)
The 70-511 is also quite nice. If you prefer desktop applications, you should concentrate on this exam first (At least I would do it that way!).
In general, taking the exams is worth the time but again this is just a personal view and everyone might have some different view on it.
With kind regards,
Konrad
