Hey Reader,

For the past few weeks, I've been heads-down creating a new Adobe Commerce Certified Developer Exam Prep course, and am excited to share a bit of the behind the scenes about my approach.

From the start, I never believed you should have to read 300+ page study guides to pass these exams. That process is painfully inefficient, and honestly not how I managed to pass them myself.

Instead, I've identified core concepts that consistently appear throughout the exams. The new course will feature 21 targeted video lessons that focus specifically on these high-value areas, complemented by cheat sheets and reference tables for each exam category.

My goal is simple: help you pass the exam in the most efficient way possible.

I just published a preview lesson below which will give you a taste of one of these targeted lessons. While I won't be following my typical "atomic lesson cadence" until this course is complete, I didn't want to leave you hanging without any updates, so will be sharing some of these lessons before launch.

There will also be plenty of lessons besides these targeted study materials. I'm building a comprehensive system to guide you through the entire cert-prep, following the exact same process that I've used personally used to prepare for and pass these exams.

I'm aiming to release the full course around the week of June 15th (assuming everything goes smoothly with the platform dev 😅). I don't usually like setting specific dates, but know many of you have been asking for a timeline.

If you are a University student, I'll also start to privately share the new exam portal and lessons over the next few weeks.

If you have any questions, just hit reply to this email. I'll be sharing more details as we get closer to launch.

Keep coding,

Mark Shust Teacher / M.academy Say hi 👋 on LinkedIn & YouTube​

Request response lifecycle in Magento

If you don't know what happens between the time a request hits the web server and a response is returned from Magento, you probably won't have any chance at passing any of the developer exams.

Here's a quick one that goes over everything crucial you need to know about the request-response process:

Watch →

How Magento 2's Request-Response Lifecycle Works

So we just had a quick recap of the "need to know" aspects for passing the cert.

But... do you know the rest of what happens under the hood?

Here's a comprehensive article that goes over the inner workings of a Magento request:

Read →

How does a Magento request flow? A web request gets sent through a web server and is then processed through Magento's complex bootstrap/routing process. Do you know how to simply answer this question? It has always been a favorite question of mine when conducting technical Magento developer interviews.

Built-in Magento routers

I just opened up a related lesson in the Kickstart course for this week that goes over all of the built-in routers and their related sort orders. Check it:

Watch →

University students get early access

I'll be releasing cert-prep course access to University students way before it becomes generally available. Want early access?

Enroll →

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