UML guide for the SCJA exam available!

To everyone studying for the SCJA beta, one of the exam's creators, Dave Wood, has created a 10-page PDF on the UML you need for the exam. He's currently writing an OO book that has UML in it, and so he pulled together a little cheat-sheet to help the beta takers for SCJA.

It's not a chapter from the book or anything, just pieces he put together to help you prepare. He actually wrote most of the UML questions on the SCJA, so he understands exactly what you need to be studying. : )

It's at:
http://www.hfoobook.com/

Good luck with your prepping!

Thanks Bert!

Will there be any guides for other topics?

Nick

Thanks kathy,
That will indeed be of great help..

Thanks Bert,

Is it going to be an OOAD book? who are going to be the target readers of the book?

hai berts !
It was absolutely desperate to get this material.

Thanks
Karthik_Techie
SCJP 1.4,ICAD 285,PREP SCJA.

Bert,

Thank you.......

Regards
Vishwas

Thanks so much!

Originally posted by Mark Cave:
Thanks Bert,

Is it going to be an OOAD book? who are going to be the target readers of the book?

Hi Mark.

It's really an OORADPw/UML book.

It covers use cases, analysis and then lots of design/implementation topics. The target audience will have at least some programming experience...ideally with Java (the example code is mostly in Java, but it's definitely not a how-to-program-in-Java book). The book covers a wide range of OO stuff, including some fairly basic stuff early on before moving into more advanced topics (things like object-to-relational mappings, distributed objects, etc.).

HTH!

-Dave

Originally posted by Bert Bates:
To everyone studying for the SCJA beta, one of the exam's creators, Dave Wood, has created a 10-page PDF on the UML you need for the exam. He's currently writing an OO book that has UML in it, and so he pulled together a little cheat-sheet to help the beta takers for SCJA.

It's at:
http://www.hfoobook.com/

Good luck with your prepping!

Many Thanks to bert and dave .This would really help.

Bert - Great Test , took it yesterday

Dave - Great tutorial , will defently buy the book and cudos are in order for your questions on the test.

i really enjoyed the experience , great test.

It's very good.

thank you very much.

Thanks Dave,

It's really an OORADPw/UML book.

What is RADPw?

Are you refering to Rapid Application Development Process(RADP)?

Originally posted by Mark Cave:
Thanks Dave,

What is RADPw? Are you refering to Rapid Application Development Process(RADP)?

Whoops! Sorry for the confusion. I was just being silly and adding to the OOAD acroynm...

OORADPw/UML =

OO - Object Oriented
R - Requirements
A - Analysis
D - Design
P - Programming
w/ - with
UML - Unified Modeling Language

Looks very good Dave.

Mark

Whoops! Sorry for the confusion. I was just being silly and adding to the OOAD acroynm...

OORADPw/UML =

OO - Object Oriented
R - Requirements
A - Analysis
D - Design
P - Programming
w/ - with
UML - Unified Modeling Language

Thanks Dave, I will be waiting for the book to hit the stores.

Most of uml questions I got in the test were covered by this material.

Originally posted by Erik Bengtson:
Most of uml questions I got in the test were covered by this material.

That's good to hear. But you did say most...is there anything in particular that was on the exam that's not covered in the PDF? I thought I had everything in there, so I'd like to update it if I forgot something!

Thanks,
Dave

But you did say most...is there anything in particular that was on the exam that's not covered in the PDF? I thought I had everything in there, so I'd like to update it if I forgot something!

The only thing I noticed that the PDF is lacking has to do with mapping UML to Java code. For example, you might be given a UML diagrama with two classes, a one to many composition relationship, and a navigation arrow. You must select the valid code for these two classes in Java in order to reflect the same structure, multiplicity and navigation.

...Ariel

Originally posted by Ariel Ortiz:

The only thing I noticed that the PDF is lacking has to do with mapping UML to Java code. For example, you might be given a UML diagrama with two classes, a one to many composition relationship, and a navigation arrow. You must select the valid code for these two classes in Java in order to reflect the same structure, multiplicity and navigation.

...Ariel

I just read through the pdf last night and I could of sworn this was covered. It might not of been explicit but it was implicitly covered. At least I thought.

I just read through the pdf last night and I could of sworn this was covered. It might not of been explicit but it was implicitly covered. At least I thought.

This might be so. But from the information in the PDF document only, can you tell me how would you code in Java the UML diagrama in page 3? Remember that you must keep the same structure, multiplicity and navigation.

...Ariel

Hi Ariel,

But from the information in the PDF document only, can you tell me how would you code in Java the UML diagrama in page 3?

OK, let me try translating the UML diagram on page 3 into code.

public class Book {
    
    private String title;
    private List<Page> pages;
    private int pages; // no of pages
    
    public Book(String title) throws NoSuchBookException {
        // Search this title from the database. If exists, create a list  
        // and retrieve all the page information and add them to variable 
        // pages. 
        // Initialize all the instance variables here.
        ...
    }     
           
    public void showPage(int pageNumber) throws InvalidPageNumberException {
        
        // throws InvalidPageNumberException if pageNo is invalid.
        ...   
        // retrieve the Page object from the list corresponding to this 
        // pageNo.
        Page page = ...
        page.show();
    }
  
    public int[] search(String pattern) {
         // search if this pattern can be found in any pages.
         // return an array of page number where this pattern can be 
         // found otherwise returns an empty array.
         ...
    }
}
 
public class Page {
 
    private int number;
    private String content;
 
    public Page(int pageNumber, String content) {
        number = pageNumber;
        this.content = content;
    }
    
    public void show() {
        System.out.println(content);
    }
 
    public boolean search(String pattern) {
        // returns true if the pattern can be found, otherwise false
    }
}

To simplify the code, I made some assumptions; for example, the UML diagram does not show the return value of each method so I took the liberty of deciding the return types. Nevertheless, it still satisfies the structure, multiplicity and navigation. All the variables and methods specified in the diagram are in the code. Assuming all the books found in the database has at least one page. A List object is used to hold all the Page objects. Only the Book "knows" the Page, thus forms an acyclic graph. When this book is destroyed, all its Page objects are destroyed.

Now the question is, if we replace the composition notation with a association one, does it still map to the code above? I would say yes. If association relationhship is used with mulitiplicty and navigation remain unchanged, that is,

However, in the above diagram (association), I can't tell if a Page object referenced by a Book object can be referenced by other type of object elsewhere or not. But with composition, I know that this Page object can only be owned by a Book object at any time.

Joyce
[ June 24, 2005: Message edited by: Joyce Lee ]

Nice answer Joyce.

But were you able to get to it by just reading the PDF document? That's my whole point.

I agree that for many seasoned Java programmers the UML notation is very easy to translate to Java once you get to understand it. But do you think someone with little programming experience can effectively do this translation. Let's not forget the target audience for this exam.

...Ariel

Good point about the code.

In fact, I have a page that does show a couple code sames for this book/page example (source code is almostly exactly the same as what Joyce wrote!)...I should have included it in the PDF -- sorry. I'll update the PDF to include this additional page and post back here when it's available.

Thanks for the feedback!

-Dave

OK, I went ahead and added one more page from the HFOO book to the PDF. It's basically just a code example, similar to the code given earlier in this thread (a bit less complete, actually...but it does include two different (but very similar) implementation examples).

It's in the same place...just hit the link at the top of hfoobook.com.

If you're bored, you can check out the rest of the (very) slightly improved site as well.

-Dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for creating this PDF for the SCJA takers.

Joyce
[ June 25, 2005: Message edited by: Joyce Lee ]

[Ariel]: But were you able to get to it by just reading the PDF document? That's my whole point.

I agree that for many seasoned Java programmers the UML notation is very easy to translate to Java once you get to understand it. But do you think someone with little programming experience can effectively do this translation. Let's not forget the target audience for this exam.

I agree with you. Having UML diagrams with some code examples would definitely make the explanation clearer.

Dave - you're rockin!

Glad you guys like the test

Hi Dave,

you wrote at the begin about requirement analysis. Do you follow the Agile way?

Regards,
Darya

Hi,

I created a new topic What is the HF OO book about?.

Let's discuss it there, since I believe that this isn't SCJA relevant anymore.

Thanks,
Darya

[Andrew: Changed the topic link since I moved the topic to Bunkhouse Porch]
[ July 08, 2005: Message edited by: Andrew Monkhouse ]

Thanks for the guide. It realy helped. Thanks Dave and Bert.

Hi, does anyone have this extended UML PDF with java-code samples mentioned above??

Thank you
Syb.

Hello Ranchers,

I am trying to get Dave Wood's PDF but I guess the link is broken, if possible can anyone forward it to me.

Thanks

That domain itself is up for sale.
Please provide the link for pdf.
Thanks.

It's here now: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7214872/hfooassociateuml

Nice forum