Some of our more technical clients tell us that they want to become certified in Joomla. They ask us if such a certification exists – and if it does – how can one become certified.
Our answer is always as follows: There is no official certification in Joomla. There are some commercial companies offering certifications in Joomla, but these certifications are not official, and, as such, do not carry real weight in the professional world. In short, there is no way to officially become a Joomla Certified Developer.
But, how come there is no official certification for Joomla even though it’s been there for several years now and is being used by millions of websites?
The answer to this question is simple: Joomla, in its core, is quite an easy product. Here’s what one needs to know about Joomla to know almost everything about Joomla:
- What are components, modules, and plugins
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How to create articles/categories
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How to create menus and menu items
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How to create a module and assign that module to a menu item
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How to install extensions
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How to change the template
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How edit a template
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How to work with plugins
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How to work with ACL
Believe it or not – the above is all what Joomla is about in a basic installation. One doesn’t need to get certified to know how to work with Joomla – he can learn everything about it in one afternoon.
But is Joomla really that simple? If it is, then how come there are 3rd party companies such as itoctopus supporting Joomla?
Well, Joomla’s complexity is proportional to the number and the complexity of the 3rd party extensions installed. The more you have of those installed on your website, the harder it becomes to work on it (and the harder it becomes to debug it). Some examples of Joomla’s extremely advanced extensions are: sh404, JomSocial, JFusion (yes – JFusion can be quite complicated – check this post on eFront’s integration with Joomla), etc…
But since Joomla can be quite complex, shouldn’t that be reason enough for it to have a certification?
As stated earlier, Joomla, in and for itself, is quite easy. It only becomes complex when you have 3rd party extensions installed, and it’s unrealistic to expect Joomla, as an organization, to issue a certification that will take complex 3rd party extensions into consideration.
Are there plans for an official Joomla certification at any point in the future?
Currently, there aren’t, and we don’t expect to see such a certification in the near future, simply because the aim of the Joomla team is to maintain a product that is easy to use by anyone, but that can be customized, with unofficial extensions, to do anything!
But what about Joomla experts – how did they become experts?
These people became Joomla experts because 2 things:
- Their fluency in PHP
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Their long time exposure to Joomla
At itoctopus, we are proud to say that we have reached the expertise level in Joomla a long time ago. So, if you need anything on your Joomla website, then be confident that we, at itoctopus, can do it for you! All you need is to do is to contact us and you can rest assured that neither we nor our fees will disappoint you!