become Java certified

I have not done any studying for this in a long time, but I am getting very good experience on the job lately which always helps out. I did some interesting things with Comparators and the factory pattern today. Quick and slick method of sorting lists based on any of various elements within an object.

I passed the SCJP 6.0 exam yesterday!!!!!

I got 86%, which is less than I hoped for, but the questions on concurrency were more difficult than on the 5.0 mock exams. All in all, I am satisfied with my result and I’m starting to learn for the next exam. I want to take SCWCD on April, 10th. We’ll see if I manage it :) :) :)

Time to open this goal up again as I have changed jobs in the last 6 months and I am now using Java daily.

I am going to take the SCJP exam in December. I am working with the SCJP For Java 5 Study Guidy by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates, which I’m told is a great preparation guide. I am also going to buy amock exam in December and play with it for around two weeks and take the exam short before Christmas.

This would leave an open slot for me next year, I could either start the J2EE exams or go for something really big and try the SCJD exam. But for now, I have plans till the end of December.

I have the objectives printed out, I have bought two books, so there’s nothing that can stop me from a hieving my goal, except for my own procrastination, of course. But I’m sure things are going to get better when I progress a bit towards this goal.

This just doesn’t seem worth the effort anymore. Java is slightly losing favor these days, and I don’t think the certifications are keeping up with the language changes, so what’s the point?

Well, it’s not very glamorous, and it’s not on my list of really interesting things I want to spend my time doing, but work is paying for me to take the test if I want to so I better get studying. It’s a pretty happy little resume bullet for future usage. I’m basically looking at it in the “if they think I know more they will pay me more and then I will have cash money to do interesting things I’d rather spend my time doing!”

Plus, deep down somewhere, I do like programming. Sometimes I forget though.

printed out all of the objectives and bought the examscam book. Had to register for the exam to get really motivated.

I am giving up on this one for now. We are moving in the direction of C# and .NET at work. I am going to focus my efforts on a certification in that arena.

My boss wants myself & my colleague who were previously concerned mainly with operational live support of a number of J2EE applications – operational meaning we mainly did data fixes, restarting servers, making changes to config files and so forth – to converge our roles with those of the developers we work with. This means learning Java, dusting off our webMethods knowledge, learning our local proprietory system for XML validation, and so forth. To that end, I’ve re-started my SCJP study, but I’m also working through various exercises in Java programming using JDBC, Swing, RMI and so forth, and picking up what UML I can.