Talking about books and in particular
A PROGRAMMER'S GUIDE TO JAVA CERTIFICATION by Khalid A. Mughal and Rolf W. Rasmussen, Marcus Green has
an interview with the authors.
In particular I found interesting this passage (emphases mine) which I reproduce with implicit permission from Marcus (he's cool):
RWR: Compared to some other certification exams, the exams from Sun
Educational Services are good in that they for the most part require a firm
grasp of the language in order to pass. However, I see indications that
some people are able to pass the exams without actually knowing the
language all that well. The certification process should ensure that certified
programmers/developers are proficient in the language. This is also
reflected in the approach we took for the certification book. It concentrates
on allowing the reader to actually master the language and thereby be
prepared to take the exam, rather than just providing the what is believed
to be "bare essentials" needed for the exam. I
highly recommend that certification candidates read this interview.
As I said before, this is one of my very favorite books to learn Java (for programmers). Don't let the tittle fool you; it's much
more than a "Certification" book, it is Java learning book. You can read my comments in amazon.com, BTW...
[This message has been edited by Tony Alicea (edited February 22, 2000).]