Oliver Hernandez

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since May 20, 2004
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Recent posts by Oliver Hernandez

The day before I left for vacation, I received the wonderful news on June 14th in my email from Oracle that not only did I pass the SCJD, but scored a perfect 400 points!

I was sooo paranoid that I might have missed a detail that would result in an automatic failure; guess my meticulousness paid off! I admit I can be a little OCD, and reviewed my submission multiple times over a period of a couple of weeks before I sent it to Oracle, and went over my entire assignment with a fine toothed comb after I completed it in a span of 10 months.

I whole heartedly thank everyone responsible for this site and all the kind helpful souls on these forums with helping me pass this thing with flying colors! Especially the JUnit tests and Ant scripts posted here, invaluable tools.

I was assigned URLyBird 1.2.2. I worked on it on and off over 10 months, and I honestly can't say how many hours I spent on it, maybe around 120 hours or so. I first tackled the database file and Data class, implementing all the required methods in the interface. Working my way out, I chose RMI, and developed my server, using a business delegate and service locator patterns to decouple the server from the client to run either locally in standalone mode or remotely. I lastly worked on the GUI, which probably took me the longest as I had very little experience with Swing, and am spoiled from using GUI builders. I admit though, that was probably the funnest part of the assignment once I got the hang of it. My biggest learning curve was the layout managers. Then I tidied everything up, wrote my choices and user documentation (as plain text), tested the crap out of it, held my breathe while I sent it off to Oracle, took the essay exam, and exhaled once I received my results about 5 weeks later, yay!

Despite quite a lot of personal sacrifice doing this with a family while working more than full time on a new development project, it was a great learning experience, and I truly believe it helps sharpen any Java developer's abilities as the assignment covers important areas such as multithreading and design patterns.
13 years ago
I uploaded my assignment and subsequently took my essay exam May 6th. I received an email from Oracle acknowledging they've received my assignment. I haven't heard back yet with the results, so can I assume I haven't automatically failed and that they're in the process of actually grading my assignment? I was quite paranoid about submitting that assignment, checking *everything* N-times to make sure I didn't overlook a must requirement, and I guess I'm still paranoid. Thanks!
Hey Everyone,

My sincerest gratitude to this forum in guiding me through my SCJD assignment, it probably would have taken me even longer without it! And thanks to Roberto for posting this multi-threading JUnit test!

I'd like to contribute a small modification I made to give me an additional "warm & fuzzy" that my code will not deadlock. I added a countdown latch that the main thread in the startTests() method waits on before printing the message "SUCCESS! No deadlocks occurred."


My startTests() method now looks like:

Then, at the end of each Thread's Run() method, I added

The main thread will now wait until all 50 threads have counted the latch down to 0, which can only happen when there is no deadlock.
I prepared mostly with the K&B book, taking the practice quizzes on the CD, and a couple of mock tests on the new Java 5 features at javabeat.net. I went into this thing pretty nervous, afraid that I was going to choke, but am glad I passed with a decent score! I was mostly worried about forgetting API calls, the new drag & drop type questions, and generics.

I was surprised though that being an upgrade test, there weren't more questions specific on the new language features of 5.0. I found it covered pretty much all of the objectives evenly, so I'm glad I didn't focus strictly on the new language features and went through the entire K&B book.

My tips:
* Get the K&B book.
* Take as many practice tests/quizzes before the real exam.
* Give yourself enough time to study, at least 2 solid weeks.
* Save for last the drag&drop questions if you're spending too much time on them.
* Read Javaranch.com!
17 years ago
On page 551, under the heading The Comparable Interface, there is a typo in the name of the util package. It states "java.utils.Arrays.sort()" instead of "java.util.Arrays.sort()".
[ September 28, 2006: Message edited by: Barry Gaunt ]
Thanks for the quick reply, as I'm studying like mad for the test this coming Thursday!

I did find that java.util.Currency class you mention, but that isn't on any of the SCJP5 objectives. What was even more frustrating in missing that question is that the chapter does not cover java.util.Currency.

I still believe the wording of this question is incorrect, and am hoping to hear from one of the authors here to clear me up.
In the self test for this chapter, question 8, I don't understand how "C." is a true statement:

C. Both Currency and NumberFormat objects must be constructed using static methods.



What is a Currency object?? The chapter doesn't cover such a class, except for getting a NumberFormat instance via the getCurrencyInstance() factory method. Is this a typo in the statement, that maybe should be reworded to something like "Both number and currency formatter objects must be constructed using static methods in the NumberFormat class"?
I just found a typo in the MasterExam that's on the CD included with the K&B book. The errata doesn't list anything from the MasterExam simulator.

The typo I found is on the question about selecting which java command to successfully run a MusicPlayer project. The MusicPlayer class is in the player package, and its .class file is both in the folder /mp/classes/player, and the jar file /mp/jars/mp.jar. One of the correct answers the test lists is "java -cp /mp/jars/cp.jar player.MusicPlayer" !
I'm scheduled to take the SCJP 5 Sept. 28, so I'll use the strategy for answering questions on given code to check for errors first, then understand the logic.

Thanks for the responses!
I'm going through the K&B SCJP 5 book, and got a little frustrated with one of the self-test questions.

In general - If a given code sample for a question has ANY errors in it, whether it be compiler or runtime errors, and one of the mutliple choice answers is "compilation error" or "exception thrown", should those ALWAYS be the correct answer?

The question I missed asked about at what point in the code is something true. I found where in the code the condition is true, but also noticed further down in the code a runtime error. I struggled to answer it, as I get the feel for how tricky the exam can be on the wording of questions, and how one can miss what the questions is specifically asking. So, I chose the answer where the given condition becomes true, since the question was worded as "at what point", and the code would have reached the state where the condition becomes true, not throwing the runtime exception until later on.