Java Certification

A year ago I bought a voucher for the Sun Java Programmer test (US$150). The time had come to use it or lose it, so this morning I passed the test . Many thanks to Tom Duff for giving me his Java 2 Certification Study Guide after he passed the test (that link actually points to the newer edition). And most of, many thanks to my wife and son who put up with a lot of evening and weekend hours with me hunkered down in the home office with all this Java stuff. So...several folks have asked what resources one might use to learn Java and/or pass the test. My goal was to do both, so listed below (and shown in the picture) is what I used:

• Sun Education's course SL-275. OK, I was lucky on this one. A couple of years ago when Tom Duff and I worked at Enron, we were fortunate to be sent to Sun's one week Java class, which was a great intro to the language. I went back through the course exercises as a rudimentary refresher.



• A Programmer's Guide to Java Certifcation. This is a great book. The first time I opened it, it scared the heck out of me. But with time, it actually started to make sense. Miracles happen!



• Java 2 Certification Study Guide. This book is also useful for pressing flowers, because it weighs a ton! It actually contains study guides for the Programmer test and the Developer test (the next test in the series). Some day I might work toward the Developer test, but for now the next one I plan to work on is the IBM XML test.



• Mike Meyers' Java 2 Certification Passport. The travel theme is a little hokey, but you get used to it. This was the book I used the most during the week (and long weekend of study) right before the test. This is not the book to use if you are starting out learning Java; this is the book to use to make sure you've got the objectives covered before taking the test.



• Java Ranch. This web site is great. It's a little corny, but there's a wealth of information and tips on the site, some good simple code samples, practice tests, and links to all things Java. My donation to the site is on the way.



• Practice Exam for Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform. I paid US$75 for a 90-day subscription to the web-based practice test from Sun. It gives a very good feel for the format of the actual test questions, and covers each objective pretty well.

Well with this morning's test out of the way, I've got my PCLP (R4,5,6 App Dev), MCP (Visual Basic 6.0), and now SCJP (and part way through Oracle Developer cert, but that may stay in limbo for a while). But I'm finally back up to the same number of certs as Duffbert, so life is good :-)

So now for tonight it is absolutely no studying. I'm off to enjoy a pint or two! Cheers.