Sorry about the delay in answering your questions guys (Rodrigo W Bonatto ,Mathew Ung ,Mihai Radulescu)
Thank you every one for your kind comments and also a special 'Thank you' to Andrew � I have found some of your answers (to questions posted by others) very useful.
Now for the answers to your questions. (how long did it take ? what tips I have for others doing this certification and what about the data store and server)
How long did it take. The short answer: It took ages for me. But you can probably do it in less then two months if you avoid the mistakes I have made.
My mistakes.
A) I was lazy
B) I was very lazy
C) Spent months 'preparing for the assignment' by trying to read Habibi's book (never managed to go beyond the first few chapters anyway) and the 'Developer exam' section of Philip Heller and Simon Roberts book.
Now I can't blame the authors of those books. They just didn't work for me. I should I have realized this and moved on instead of trying to read them for years. But the Heller-Roberts book was the best I could find for the programmer exam. And I can't say enough about how wonderful that book was for that exam. As for Habibi's book it just didn't work for me � Although it may have worked for others.
So after wasting enough time with those book I finally gave up and started reading the spec and tried to started on the assignment. Instead of trying to master RMI , J table etc and then start the assignment, I thought I would learn the stuff on the go. Sun's on line tutorial is a Godsend when it comes to 'learning on the go'. It is so simple and practical and 'to the point' without any time wasters. Sun's tutorial didn't work for me when I tried learning Java from scratch using it alone. (I would recommend a book for purpose). But when you know the basics and when you want get something done quickly they give you the best type of help.
But the most helpful resource was this forum. It has answered so many questions without me even having to ask!
What tips do I have for others doing this certification Assuming you are like me (certified programmer but little or no experience with real lava coding)
here is what I would suggest.
A) get down and dirty with coding early instead of trying to learn stuff by reading pages and pages of text. That was my main mistake.
B) Use 'General purpose' lava resources (books tutorials) more instead of expecting to find all your answers from 'How to pass this certification' type of books. Sun's tutorial is a gold mine.
C)Don't be as lazy as me.
D)Use this Forum
Data server/Data store I will add a new post on this later. Sorry, I am not well these days (Flu I guess) so hard to do lots of typing. Thanks for all the responses again and talk to you later
Sumuhan
[ February 05, 2006: Message edited by: sumuhan ]
[ February 05, 2006: Message edited by: sumuhan ]