I passed IBM 141 with 87 %

[Razvan MIHAIU]

Hi




Today I managed to pass IBM's exam "XML and Related Technologies" (code 141) with 87 %. I want to thank to all the people from this forum who answered my questions.

Details:

1. Architecture (% from test = 18 %), my score 90%
2. Information modeling (% from test = 27 %), my score 100 %
3. XML processing (% from test = 33 %), my score 83 %
4. XML rendering (% from test 11 %), my score 50 %
5. Testing and tuning (% from test 11 %), my score 100 %
[ April 11, 2005: Message edited by: Razvan MIHAIU ]

[Arun Prasath]

Congrats Razvan!!..

[Sandy Singh]

congrats

[Tong Chen]

congratulations and enjoy!

[Senthil Kumaresan]

Razvan Mihaiu,
Congratulations on your achievement. Its a good score.
It will be great if you can share your preparation process.

Senthil.

[Hari Vignesh Padmanaban]

Congrats !!!

Great Score

[Nicholas Cheung]

Well done!

By the way, Hari, which exam you are preparing?

Or, any products, notes, you are writting?

Nick

[Razvan MIHAIU]

Hi Senthil,




I will write some articles about XML 141 exam preparation like I did for the SCJP exam. When the articles are finished I will post the links in the forum.

In the meantime I can tell you this:

1. "XML bible" is completely useless; in the chapters about DOM/SAX they just copy & paste the Xerces documentation. It is very boring to read. I was looking for code samples (plenty!!) but you will not find such samples in this book.
Another minus: they don't have an overview of technologies in the beginning of the book (like you will find in "Professional XML"). For me this was a major drawback since I cannot learn how to use a technology without first understanding how it fits in the XML puzzle.

2. "Professional XML" (second edition) - very good but not enough. I am recommending this book both to beginners and advanced users. For beginners, this is much better than "XML bible". If you want to learn XML don't lose your time with so-called "beginner's" books - like "XML bible". Go straight for "Professional XML" and you will not be disappointed.

Problems with this book: some parts are outdated. Even some essential parts like XML Schema. Some people will say that this is not a problem because the specification did not change much from "Candidate recommendation� to recommendation. That is correct *but* (and this is a big "but") the specifications that have not reached the "Recommendation" status when "Professional XML" was written were treated superficially.
Example: for "XML Schema" I was disappointed that the book did not give examples for enumeration, lists or unions for simple types.

3. "Processing XML with Java" I do not have any complains about this book. I do not know if this is enough for your certification because my main book was "Professional XML". Only when some topics were superficially covered in "Professional XML" I went on to read "Processing XML with Java".
Anyway, from what I read, the book is very well written with plenty of examples.

Some bad news for all XML developers: the community is not well developed. This exam is harder than SCJP because the XML community is much less active than the Java community. When I studied Java I just asked questions on the Usenet (comp.lang.java.programmer). Over 90% of the time the answer (and the analysis of the question and answers) were *very* useful. Try to do the same with comp.text.xml and you will be very disappointed. If you get an answer to your question you are very fortunate. Don't even dream about an analysis of the problem and the proposed solutions. Just be happy that you've got an answer at all.
[ April 15, 2005: Message edited by: Razvan MIHAIU ]

[Hari Vignesh Padmanaban]

Originally posted by Nicholas Cheung:
Well done!

By the way, Hari, which exam you are preparing?

Or, any products, notes, you are writting?

Nick

I am supposed to be preparing for ASp.NET :roll: But with work being hectic I m just sort of pushing it ..

Currently, I am working on writting the 2 and 3 part for the XML certifciation success article at IBM with Whizlabs

Hopefully , i am able to take the exams after that abd try to beat your LONG list !!!(I am allowed to dream ..rite ? )

And Razvan, Thanks for the tips

[ April 15, 2005: Message edited by: Hari Vignesh Padmanaban ]
[ April 16, 2005: Message edited by: Hari Vignesh Padmanaban ]

[Nicholas Cheung]

Will you go for SCJA beta?

Nick

[Hari Vignesh Padmanaban]

Originally posted by Nicholas Cheung:
Will you go for SCJA beta?

Nick

I am more into Microsoft now !! [mostly WinFOrms] Chances of taking any exam related to java is almost nil
But willl go for Java based exams too in the future coz java is COOL

[Sharika Raj]

Hi Razvan,
Congratulations for getting such a great score

I read your reply about Professional XML. Can you please tell me where I can find good reference for Schema?
Is Essential XML QuickReference good for that area?

Thanks,
Sharika

[Razvan MIHAIU]

Hi Sharika,




I cannot comment on this book because I have not read it !

A good site for XML Schema is www.zvon.org:

http://www.zvon.org/xxl/xmlSchema2001Reference/Output/Schema/index.html

Basically you need a book or website where you will see samples with all the elements that can appear in XML Schema.
The information from ZVON.ORG is very useful but it doesn't have extensive explanations for all cases. For this kind of information check the appendices for some XML related books. For example in "Beginning XML, 2nd Edition-XML Schemas, SOAP,XSLT,DOM, and SAX 2.0" you will find two very useful appendices:

Appendix D: Schema Element and Attribute Reference
Appendix E: Schema Datatypes Reference

Check your preferred XML book for such appendices (found at the end of the book).
The best way to solve this issue is to read first some chapter about XML (including the one from "Professional XML"). After reading you are ready to tackle down all the details ! For this use an appendix like the ones mentioned before.

I hope that this helps.

[Billy Tsai]

congratulations