Cant make up my mind SCEA or SCWD

[Java geezer]

Thanks be to God, I just passed my SCJP.
Now I feel hungry ... what do I go for
SCEA or SCWD, am I right in thinking that SCEA and SCWD overlap a lot. So if I get SCEA then SCWD wont matter...
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Whatever you think you can do, begin it !. Boldness has power, magic and genius in it.

[Tony Alicea]

"Well..." (as Ronald Reagan would say), one Certification is more for those who want to be programmers and the other one is mainly for someone who wants to do more DESIGN than coding?

[Simon Brown]

Also ... the Architect exam is longer because it's in three parts. There's a multi-choice exam, a practical and an "essay" exam. As Tony said, it's much more design focussed and requires an overall knowledge of the J2EE, design patterns, UML, etc.
The SCWCD is much more code oriented, focused around the new Servlets and JSP specifications.
Hope that helps...
Simon

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Simon Brown
Co-author of Professional JSP 2nd Edition

[Manjunath Subramanian]

Hello Franklin,
I was in a similar situation a few qweeks ago.
I think we should take up the certifications depending on which
line of java is more appealing to us( Web oriented or
application side development)

The certification tree looks like this...
SCJP
|-----|-----|
| | |
SCWCD SCJEA SCJD
Now if you are interested in making your career in the web components development either in two tiers or n -tiers, then you should first focus on,
1) SCWCD
********
(not necessary,but preferred because 80% of java components are web components and also because the main client's to EJB's are servlets and JSP's)

2)And then you should go for SCJEA
If your focus is on Application development side(which are not
necessarily web oriented ) then you should go for SCJD and then
take up SCJEA.
Hope this helps,
regards,
Manjunath Subramanian

[Simon Brown]

I almost agree, but the SCEA does cover web technologies too.
The important differentiator is that there is *no code involved* - the focus is all about design issues such as maintainability, extensibilty, reliability, performance, scalability, etc. It focuses on these design issues and how to model an application using UML diagrams such as use cases, class, sequence, component, etc.
The WCD basically tests your knowledge of the Servlet/JSP/Tag API, although it does have a small section on servlet design patterns such as MVC, front controller, filters, etc.
After SCJP ... I would be more tempted to do the WCD rather than the SCEA - IHMO anyway!
Hope that helps some more...
Simon

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Simon Brown
Co-author of Professional JSP 2nd Edition

[Sathi Chowdhury]

Dear Simon,
I am new to servlet jsp and started prep. for scwcd .I have prof. JSP book and the specifications from Sun.Do u have any suggestion about how to go ahead with the study for the exam.which core books will cover all the objectives for the exam?The study path was very clear during SCJP,but for this one it seems little hard to organize ,dont know how much to study from where..
would you please help?
thanks
Sathi Chowdhury

[Simon Brown]

The 2nd edition of Pro JSP does cover the new Java Servlet and JSP specifications and this is certainly a good start. However, what will be missing is the Servlet specific stuff such as filters, web applications, security, servlet patterns, etc.
In theory, just reading the specs should be enough but of course they don't generally provide nice, clear examples!
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Simon Brown
Co-author of Professional JSP 2nd Edition

[Java geezer]

Originally posted by Simon Brown:
Also ... the Architect exam is longer because it's in three parts. There's a multi-choice exam, a practical and an "essay" exam. As Tony said, it's much more design focussed and requires an overall knowledge of the J2EE, design patterns, UML, etc.
The SCWCD is much more code oriented, focused around the new Servlets and JSP specifications.
Hope that helps...
Simon

Thanks a million guys (Simon your book is cool). I've decided to go for the WCD exam.. . the coder in me prefers it for now....
Now what book do I start with

[Tony Alicea]

Sathi:
"Do u have any suggestion about how to go ahead with the study for the exam..."
You don't say whether you have passed the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform Certification which is a prerequisite. Did you?
Because if not, that should be your first concern.

[faisal mahmood]

I should say that technical knowledge is really important for architects as well, otherwise the software architecture would be bad and the project would most likely go of the rails.
So, if you are not string at technical details then you won't be good architect.
Faisal

[mark stone]

there are 3 exams, developer, architect and component one.
scjp is prequisite for all. right ? ie after scjp one can take any one of the 3 tests ? right ??

Originally posted by Tony Alicea:
Sathi:
"Do u have any suggestion about how to go ahead with the study for the exam..."
You don't say whether you have passed the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform Certification which is a prerequisite. Did you?
Because if not, that should be your first concern.

[Raj Kumar]

Thats correct...

[Madhav Lakkapragada]

nope. you can be an architect without being a programmer....
- satya

[Raj Kumar]

Hey, surprisingly thats true!!!
Sorry for the wrong info.

[Raj Kumar]

Hey, surprisingly thats true!!!
Sorry for the wrong info.

[Rashid Ali]

Yea Raj, that's true.
SCEA Exam does not need one to have SCJP certification.
But for the other 2's, its true and is prequisite.
Hope it's clear now.
Rashid Ali