Pondering Java Certification
Lately I've been wondering if I should take the Sun Certified Java Programmer exam. I've been coding in Java for the past 4 years, most of it server side. I know I will pass, but I'll probably do poorly because I don't have any experience with applets or Swing or any client side stuff. Most of my programming has been servlets, JSP's and the like. I've heard that there is a lot of stuff about bit shifting (which I wrote about earlier) and small syntactical things. I guess for the next couple of days I'll hang out at the JavaRanch and see what I can learn. It's only $150 to take the test so it shouldn't hurt too much financially.
Then after the SCJP, I'll go for the Sun Certified Web Component Developer exam. That one I'll probably buy a book for. I took the free sample test from Sun and there are a couple things that tripped me up. Like coding your own tag libraries. I've done that, but I only modified existing taglibs. Deployment descriptors were another area that I didn't do well in. I know the major tags, but I forgot there was an order to them.
Anyone have any personal experience with these exams? I'd be particularly interested in your thoughts if you were already a Java programmer for some time and decided to take the exam like I'm about to do.
Then after the SCJP, I'll go for the Sun Certified Web Component Developer exam. That one I'll probably buy a book for. I took the free sample test from Sun and there are a couple things that tripped me up. Like coding your own tag libraries. I've done that, but I only modified existing taglibs. Deployment descriptors were another area that I didn't do well in. I know the major tags, but I forgot there was an order to them.
Anyone have any personal experience with these exams? I'd be particularly interested in your thoughts if you were already a Java programmer for some time and decided to take the exam like I'm about to do.
4 Comments:
you don't have to worry about the client side stuff. If you check the SCCJP coverage for 1.4, the actually removed AWT/Swing topics, as well as IO. The topics now cover Syntactical questions, polymorphism, inheritance, the java.lang package, threads, and collections. Basically, the question are now on how Java behaves plus the "essential" classes
By
Anonymous, at 10:27 PM
Hi,
I'm an SCJP 1.4.. I'd recommend sitting the exam. I thought I knew Java, just as you did, when I began studying for it. I emerged knowing a great deal more about it.
I hope to learn as much again when I recertify for 1.5.
Cheers,
nickf (http://jroller.org/page/nickf)
By
Anonymous, at 12:32 AM
Sweet! This is very good news. Since i don't have to worry about that client-side stuff, I can probably take the exam in the next week or two and pass with a decent grade. Although I only need 52% to pass, anything less than 90% I'll consider personally as failing. There's no reason why I shouldn't score above that and if I don't perhaps I should re-think my career. I mean honestly, I've been programming in Java for over 4 years now, if I don't know 90% of the information on a beginners exam, I suck!
By
BenC, at 1:44 PM
Ugh, JavaRanch.
The guy who runs that site worked as a contractor at a company that I am currently employed at. The spew that he left behind in our codebase is amazing. I guess the guy never read the java api because he rewrote half of it--much more poorly. He reinvented persistence, MVC and several other ideas that could have been implemented MUCH BETTER using existing technology rather than his hand rolled crap.
I wouldn't trust anything on that site...
By
Anonymous, at 3:11 PM
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