Hello Marx,
I was a key player in writing the objectives for both the SCWCD and the latest version of SCJP. The general philosophy of both exams is "nuts and bolts programming". SCJP is far more about language features, as it is intended to be. SCWCD is also about the language features of webapp development, especially around
JSP syntax. Obviously, the
servlet (and to some degree the tab library objectives) are mostly about the APIs but more importantly the objectives are about the lifecycle of servlet/JSP components and HTTP interactions (especially around sessions). We did our best to make the latest SCWCD about analyzing what-if types of questions where we pose a scenario, but these types of questions are really hard to write; especially given our very short (3 days) question writing workshop.
This "nuts and bolts programming" philosophy is very different than two other important Sun certifications:
SCJD (
Java Developer) and
SCEA (Enterpirse Architect). These two exams are more in the philosophy of "design an application". This is far harder to create the exam and also to evaluate the assignments from exam candidates.
Just my 2 cents,
Bryan