Schedule

Hi,
I cleared SCJP in March, do I have to take the SCJD exam before March 2004? Or I have to do SCJD before the expiration of my SCJP ( March 2005 )? Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Ellen
[ May 21, 2003: Message edited by: Ellen Zhao ]

Good question.
I think sending an e-mail to Sun would be the best thing to do. They would know the exact rules.
Since the SCJP is a prerequisite for the SCJD then I would think that as long as your SCJP is valid you can take the SCJD. However, I do not know what would happen if you tried to sign up for the SCJD after your SCJP expired.
If you send an e-mail, let us know the results, and I can add the answer to the FAQ.
Mark

My best guess - you will need to purchase and download the SCDJ assignment before your SCPJ expires, or you will need to renew your SCPJ (which I think currently takes another $100 and a 33-question exam). They verify the currency of your SCPJ credentials as part of the purchasing process. Once you've paid for and downloaded your assignment, I think the only remaining time limit is what's discussed here. Please let us know if you learn otherwise though.
[ May 20, 2003: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

To appear for SCJD, one must have cleared SCJP. There is no time limit to appear to SCJD on that. But validity of exam is for 2 years after the announcement of result (please check with SUN on this). I cleared my SCJP in 2000 September, and now I am taking SCJD. SUN never objected for that. They only need your SCJP registration number to buy the voucher, and download the assignement.

I think this depends on when you took (or take) the SCPJ. In the past, an SCPJ had no expiration, and if you took the exam before they changed the policy (within the last year I think) then your SCPJ will never expire (unless they change the policy again and make it retroactive this time.) But if you took SCPJ more recently, you were informed when you bought it (if you read the fine print) that it's valid for a two-year period.

My plan is to have the SCDJ by then, and then not bother to renew SCPJ. I mean, if you have SCDJ, will any company care if your SCPJ is current? Unless you want to add any other certifications like SCWCD or SCBCD, which require SCPJ (either a current one, or an old "unexpiring" one). Dunno yet if I'll bother with any others after SCDJ...
Note that all details above are from memory, as I'm feeling too lazy to track down where this is documented right now - so sorry if there are any errors.
[ May 20, 2003: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

SUN did not bother whether your SCJP expired or not. Simply they want SCJP cleared. This is what they told me specifically, when I bought SCWCD voucher, and recently when registered SCJD assignment. Please note my SCJP certification is more than two year old. I asked them, whether I need to retake SCJP exam, and I was told no need to re-appear for SCJP. They are not considering the validity of SCJP to appear to other java exams like SCJD/SCWCD etc.

Well as I said I may be wrong - however your experience does not contradict what I said. Your own SCPJ does not expire, because when you took it, they did not tell you it would ever expire, and although they have changed their policies they are nice enough :roll: not to make the change retroactive. Even if the Sun rep you talked to did not know when you had taken the SCPJ when you asked - they did know that even if you took it after Sept 1, 2002, you still have two years to start SCDJ without a retest - so for all practical purposes, if someone asks today, they say "no, no need for a retest". Try asking "what if I wait until 2005" - the response may be different.
Here is Sun's general recertification policy. It applies to tests taken Sept 1, 2002 or later. At the moment I'm unable to read any of the pages with more specific info for a particular course; looks like there's something wrong with the suned site. (I tried different browsers, so I'm assuming it's their fault.) Try looking here to see if you can find anything specific about SCDJ prerequisites.
Since I can't find better info online perhaps someone here can answer - does the developer certificate have an expiration date nowadays? And if it does, what's the recertification procedure? Seems like the developer assignment is not well suited to requiring a retest after 2 years, so hopefully SCDJ is an exception to the general recertification policy.

Jeez, I'm acting like such a newbie here. Now that I've remembered the existence of the search facility

, here's a previous dicussion of recertification as applied to SCDJ. And Valentin found this recertification policy statement - of which the relevant parts are:

[b]When a certification holder does not recertify within two years, which rights are lost or retained?[b]
...
3. Can the certification holder take the exam for the next certification?
...
3. The right to take next-step certification is retained.

So yes Ganapathy, you're right; sorry to have doubted you.
For my part, I think the chance that I'll recertify in any of these is pretty low, unless an employer requests and pays for it. Otherwise I'll just happily show off my expired certificate, and not worry about it.
I note with wry amusement that the bottom right corner of my SCPJ certificate says "jCert: Certifried Once, Recognized Everywhere". Right next to the expiration date.

Schmucks. :roll:
[ May 20, 2003: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

'scuse me Jim, but have you changed keyboards recently?

-GBF

Nah FBG, I do that sort of thing all the time. My spelling is great; my typing sucks. The main variable is how much time I spend fixing it up afterwards.

Although I don't see that many errors in my latest posts here. Unless you're talking about SCPJ/SCDJ - I understand some old farts may get confused about the correct order of the letters, but not me.

[ May 21, 2003: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

Well, I do know SCDJ is Sun Certified Disc Jockey, but SCPJ??? Sun Certified Patterns Junkie?

-BGF

Thank you very much for all your input above. I am going to take SCJD shortly before March 2005 ( I will still be at school then

)

Regards,
Ellen
PS: Jim's new signature is a mystery to me, any story??

Originally posted by Ellen Zhao:

PS: Jim's new signature is a mystery to me, any story??

I thought is was some breakfast fitness drink. I wasn't far wrong:
Uva...

Hi Ellen,
You asked PS: Jim's new signature is a mystery to me, any story??
You can also look at a Meaningless Drivel thread where Jim's signature gets discussed
Regards, Andrew

Ellen - you're welcome.
Andrew - aha! So you admit that you too read MD, even while spending most of your time in more worthy intellectual pursuits here. Well, you've only been at the ranch a couple months - give us a little more time, and we'll make an incurable MD addict out of you yet.
GFB - Hey, I just use the letters in the order they occur in the exam name. Be glad I'm not going with "SCPftJ2P" and "SCDftJ2P".

Barry

I thought is was some breakfast fitness drink.
See, you get a interpretation wrong, and the whole thing's ruined

Well I don't think the MD is completely meaningless...sometimes I just didn't know where should I hang out my question which were not so directly related to programming, say, complexity analysis, computability....I simply put all of them to MD.