This weeks Giveaway

[Carl Trusiak]

This week we are giving away 4 copies of "Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 Study Guide (Exam 310-035), Third".
And the best part, Kathy Sierra, will be on line to answer your questions.
Thanks to the good people at Osborne/McGraw-Hill for the books.
Please read http://www.javaranch.com/bookpromo.jsp for entry details!
[link edited by Val]
[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Carl Trusiak ]
[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Valentin Crettaz ]

[Valentin Crettaz]

Welcome Kathy
Thank you for being online to answer questions about your new book.

[Guy A. Buyle]

How can you become one of the 4 free copy's of the fabulous book ?

[Tim Mikut]

Kathy,
Does your new book cover all the topics on the exam in detail? Especially Threads?

[Valentin Crettaz]

Guy,
participate (ask/answer questions) in this forum during this week and you might win one of the four copies of the book.

[Mike Lin]

Your post has to have something to do with that topic.
---what topic?

[Valentin Crettaz]

It means that you have to post questions related to the SCJP exam in order to qualify.

[Mike Lin]

From 8th to 14th Dec?
I have post two ,hehe.Wish I can get that book.hehe.
[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Mike Lin ]

[Guy A. Buyle]

Thanks for the advise, but I am currently busy with the preparation for the JSC1.4 exam and a lot of questions and answers are already posted in the JCP forum so I tried to read and understand the remarks.
If I have questions or problems which I do not understand I will not hesitate to posted my questions.

[Ryan Bailey]

Hello Kathy,
I'm sorry that this isn't going to be a very intense question but is this book for Java 1.3 or Java 1.4?
Thanks in advance for your time,
Ryan

[Valentin Crettaz]

On the cover, it says that the book is for the 310-035 exam which is the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform 1.4 exam.
Hope this clears your doubts
[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Valentin Crettaz ]

[Alfred Kemety]

Shouldn't the ones that did the mock exam testing for this book get a free copy?
Specially if ones' review is on the first pages of the book I mean come on, my review is on the book and I don't have a hard copy of it? hehehe *devilish*
by the way, this is an excellent book, buy it if you don't win it
[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Alfred Kemety ]

[Sherrie Jones]

I spent the past year studying & passing my MCSD and now am ready to jump into Java. I'm intensely interested in learning 1.4 as I understand this is the version the new SCJP exam is focused on. Is this book suitable for a beginner? Or should it be read after or concurrently with other books? If so, which ones?

[Kathy Sierra]

Howdy all,
Welcome to the ranch Sherrie!

Originally posted by Sherrie Jones:
Is this book suitable for a beginner?

Excellent question Sherrie. Basically, this book is suitable for anyone with $34.99.
But that's if you want to use it for a decorative paperweight.
If you want to use it for exam prep, here's who we wrote it for:
1) You *do* need to have at least some prior programming background, although you do NOT need to have prior OO and/or C or C++ exposure. We assume that you know what a variable is and understand that a programming language will have branching (if tests, case statements, etc.) and looping (for, while) but that's about it!
[ so this is obviously not a problem for you]
2) We assume that you've already gotten Java installed and that you can do the very, very, very basics.
If you can write and compile Hello World in Java, you're good to go.
3) We do NOT assume that you know anything at all about the topics in the book -- in other words, even if you wouldn't recognize one of the exam objectives if it bit you in the bum, you'll get everything you need in the book.
4) We assume that your goal in getting this book is to pass the exam. Period. We take no prisoners when it comes to being an exam prep book. There *are* some exam prep books with the main goal of making you an overall better Java developer, with certification prep as a kind of natural side-effect. Ours is the opposite. It's an exam prep book, with being a better Java developer a natural side-effect.
I was one of the six developers of the new 1.4 exam, and the goal for this book is to really help readers *understand* what's happening as opposed to just memorizing the facts. That way, when you see questions with code and scenarios you've never seen before, you can still figure out what's happening. I've seen way too many people who prepare and study by memorizing mock exam questions, but as soon as they see a variation or twist on the question, they can't answer it correctly because they didn't truly understand what's happening. That's one thing that makes Dan's mock exams so helpful -- he makes them into little learning experiences rather than just mock questions.
The tone of our book is VERY conversational and casual; it assumes you do NOT have a formal academic CS background, and that you find reading a dry textbook about as thrilling as standing in line at the DMV to renew your driver's license. We figure if life's too short to *read* a boring book, it's definitely too short to *write* one.
We don't just state a technically-accurate fact and move on... assuming that you "got it". We always assume that if you didn't get it the first time, it's *our* fault, and since you're not there to ask questions or offer that, "What you just said makes no sense" confused look, we explain each key concept in several different ways.
As for getting it with another book, you won't need another book to learn enough to pass the exam. You *will* need something to help you get it installed and to the Hello World stage, but those resources are everywhere, especially here on javaranch.
When you've finished prepping for the exam and are ready to work as a Java developer, then you will almost certainly want to add at least one more book to your collection; more if you're going to move into specialized areas like Servlets/JSP or EJB.
Technically, this book is the most 1.4-ready exam certification book, and the mock questions most closely match the tone and difficulty and content of the current REAL exam.
But if I had to pick one thing that most characterizes this book, it's that it makes the tough stuff seem easy. When I was learning Java, so many things seemed so complex. Peter van der Linden (a GREAT Java book writer) has a phrase that he said reflects what's wrong with most Java books (or tech books in general). It's that they suffer from "Clear only if known" syndrome. You've seen it, where things make perfect sense... but only AFTER you've already figured it out. But somebody has to help open the door and get you in, and that's what we tried to do. Not sure how successfully; that's up to the readers to decide.
But I can tell you that I've been teaching Sun's Java courses for the last 4 1/2 years, so I've had lots and lots of "guinea pigs" : ) A fair number, I'm pleased to say, survived the process with most of their brains intact. More or less. They'll never miss those neurons anyway.

So, Sherrie, good luck and welcome!
Cheers,
-Kathy

(Alfred -- you *are* getting a book -- but *I* don't even have a hard copy in my hands yet Should be within a few days, though).

[Sunit Mukherjee]

anything to get my hands on the book..for free..

[Linda Pan]

I've read other Java books and found that I couldn't retain a lot of the information I read. Just recently I was taking Dan Chisholm's study exam questions and it was pretty humbling for me. The right book would help tremendously. I hope I win a copy!

[Alfred Kemety]

Hurraaay Kathy la la lala laaa I'm getting a free copy Matter of fact is, I would have bought it anyway if I wouldn't have got it for free... It's good.
Kathy did you send me a post card like you said? Cause I never rececived it, so if you did, I better give you my address in more details for the book to arrive safe here .
Good luck all, I'm out of the game

[Manish Hatwalne]

Kathy,
Is this book going to be available in India?
I would love to see it ASAP, for the same reasons as Alfred
- Manish

[Alfred Kemety]

Kathy is a Sun Certified Java Programmer and a Sun Certified Java Instructor.

How can one get certified as a Java Instructor? Do you have to take an exam? Any resources, links, etc...
Thanks in advance

[dragon ji]

hope I am the lucky person!

[Juanjo Bazan]

Just a doubt about the book...
In the cover i read just "exam 310-035", but the title in the amazon's page refers also to the 027.
Is the book also focused on the developer exam??

[Kathy Sierra]

Originally posted by Juanjo Bazan:
Just a doubt about the book...
Is the book also focused on the developer exam??

The book *does* have about 170 pages on the Developer Exam, although that is NOT the main focus of the book. The Developer Exam is about 15-20% of the book, the rest is on the SCJP.
======================
But for those of you who *are* interested in the Developer Exam, here are some notes about it...
The Max Habibi Developer Exam book is more comprehensive in terms of how to do the actual development PROJECT. But the developer exam portion of our book is much more focused on the assessment of the exam. In other words, *what* is being assessed and what you need to do rather than *how* to actually do the project.
So while the SCJP portion of our book is *all you need* to study for the exam (assuming you have the API docs handy or can browse the online at Sun's site), the Developer exam section would not be all you need to learn how to build your project unless you're already an experienced developer. In other words, we can't teach you Swing and File Record Locking and Patterns in those 170 pages, but we *can* tell you what the assessment is about and all the things you need to consider before you submit it.
For example, we talk about the principles of good UI/Usability design, because it's considered pretty heavily on the exam. But we don't teach you *how* to use the Swing API. But there are lots of ways to learn Swing. The key thing is to know *what* should go on the screen and *why*, we figure it will be easy for you to find resources on the *how*. We talk about the importance of your documentation and coding conventions, and how to properly use javadoc, and how to structure your project and deliver it, and all the issues you'll need to think about when implementing your database engine.
We also talk about the tradeoffs between RMI and rolling-your-own networking via sockets, but we don't provide an RMI tutorial.
We tried to cover the things that really *aren't* covered much -- or at all -- by the other Developer exam books.
Cheers,
Kathy
MCSW (Mostly Certified Sheep Wrangler)

[Kathy Sierra]

Originally posted by Alfred Kemety:

How can one get certified as a Java Instructor? Do you have to take an exam? Any resources, links, etc...
Thanks in advance

There is no public exam for this. In order to teach Sun's classes, you must go through a certification process on each individual course you teach (although sometimes one certification can cover more than one class). The only way to go through the process is to be either:
A) an employee of Sun, working as a Java instructor
OR
B) an independent contractor, teaching Sun's courses through a company contracted to Sun. The largest of these contracting companies is owned/run by Michael Ernest, one of the javaranch moderators.
OR
C) an employee or contractor for an Authorized Sun Education Center -- a third-party company that teaches Sun's "official" courses.
So if you're not a Sun employee you have to be sponsored in some way either by an authorized training center or contracting company.
You must first be an SCJP, and then the process involves a combination of other things that could include additional tests (usually not), but almost always involves an "audition" where you teach some or all of a course with an evaluator present. Sometimes that audition is in front of "live" students (who tend to be more critical than the "dead" ones) and other times in front of other instructors and an evaluator.
You generally have to go through this for each individual course. So being certified to teach the Beginning Java course does not certifiy you to teach, say, the EJB course, so you'd go through a separate process for the EJB course.
Anyway, about 18 months ago all you had to do was be able to *spell* Java and Sun would try to rope you into going through the certification process, because the demand for Java classes was SO high. Today is another story, so it's almost impossible right now since they aren't certifying many new instructors, and are focused instead on adding new certifications to the ones they have.
But you *know* that will change when things pick up again
Also, the certification process is different when you outside of the Americas. Each "geo" has its own process. The one I described is for the Americas.
When I started (and shortly after I started javaranch) I was hired by an Authorized Java Center (a Java-specific version of a Sun-authorized training center), and they sent me through the process. A year later, that company decided to switch to only Microsoft certifications (the horror!!), so I immediately left and went to work as a Sun employee at the SunEd worldwide headquarters (in Colorado).
Today, I am back to being a contractor, primarily for the certification group.
So that's the scoop...
Michael might have more to add about the current state of contract instructors.
Cheers,
Kathy

[Thomas Paul]

It seems to me that this might be a good way for Sun to make a bit of money. They could give a test and require an audition. If you pass, they make you a "Sun Certified Java Instructor". Actually they probably wouldn't like it because they would have all these certified instructors competing against SunEd. So, never mind.

[Vedhas Pitkar]

Hi has the exam number changed?COz when I gave the exam I clearly remember the exam no. as 310-025.

[Levente Szekrenyes]

Originally posted by Vedhas Pitkar:
Hi has the exam number changed?COz when I gave the exam I clearly remember the exam no. as 310-025.

The exam no. for the 1.2 version is 310-025, for the 1.4 version it is 310-035. The Developer exam is 310-027.

[Jim Crawford]

Hi
Are these promos only for people in the US? If so it sucks.
Forum still cool though...

[Ben Ritchie]

The book *does* have about 170 pages on the Developer Exam, although that is NOT the main focus of the book. The Developer Exam is about 15-20% of the book, the rest is on the SCJP.

I have Habibi's book, but this sounds like useful material. However it is a bit irritating to have to pay �35 + �5 shipping (== $60, no $35 price and free shipping from Amazon.co.uk) for a book when 80-85% is useless to me. Any plans to cover *what* is being assessed elsewhere...?

[RajAjmani]

I am planning to appear for Java exam in the comming month. This giveaway sounds good. If I am lucky I can go through this book which can help me a lot ....

[Sudd Ghosh]

Hi to all ranchers preparng for the exam -
I got an opportunity to review some of the mock questions in Kathy's book. I found the questions very conceptual in nature, which is very similar to the real exam questions. These kind of questions will really make you learn the concepts. The questions on GC and thread are just wonderful and very, very similar to the real exam. (BTW, I took this SCJP1.4 test on Nov 05, 02). In fact, I realised that only if I had faced these kind of questions before the exam, I would have done better.

Thanks, Sudd

[Lance Titchkosky]

Hi Kathy,
You say that:

We assume that your goal in getting this book is to pass the exam. Period. We take no prisoners when it comes to being an exam prep book. There *are* some exam prep books with the main goal of making you an overall better Java developer, with certification prep as a kind of natural side-effect. Ours is the opposite. It's an exam prep book, with being a better Java developer a natural side-effect.

How would you compare this book to say Bill Brogden's Exam Cram for Java 2?
lance

[Lance Titchkosky]

One more question, do you know when this book will be available for purchase for those of us who do not get a free copy? Amazon still shows it as not yet published.
thanks,
lance

[Kathy Sierra]

Originally posted by Lance Titchkosky:
Hi Kathy,
How would you compare this book to say Bill Brogden's Exam Cram for Java 2?
lance

I'm actually not familiar enough with the ExamCram to compare, but from what I've seen the ExamCrams are more meant for... cramming, to help you drill and lock in the exam facts. Very good for reinforcing and memorization.
But my book is about *learning* and *understanding* it all in the first place. So if you already know and understand it, but you really need to get the facts memorized (NOT an easy thing to do since so much of this may be stuff you don't use every day... or ever), then I think the ExamCram would be a big help in your final prep.
My personal opinion is that if you need a deep understanding of everything covered on the exam, and a clear picture of what the 1.4 exam is really like (tricks, tips, pitfalls), then I think our cert book is the way to go , and for the time being -- the best one for studying for the 1.4 exam.

Other than that, if you're taking the 1.4 exam then you probably need to wait for the update of ExamCram (coming at the early part of next year, according to the author's post here).
Personally, I think Exam-Cram-type books are *really *helpful. Not sure I could have done well without one myself; I'm just not familiar with this particular one.
cheers,
Kathy
Author, "Cowgirls Guide to Shameless Self Promotion"

[Kathy Sierra]

Originally posted by Lance Titchkosky:
Amazon still shows it as not yet published.
thanks,

McGraw-Hill confirmed that the books have been shipped to all major distributors including Amazon. It just might take a few more days to wind their way through the system. I would expect them to be shipping from Amazon (and appearing in Borders/ B&N) by early next week.
So, any moment now : )
cheers,
Kathy

[Kathy Sierra]

Originally posted by Ben Ritchie:

it is a bit irritating to have to pay �35 + �5 shipping (== $60, no $35 price and free shipping from Amazon.co.uk) for a book when 80-85% is useless to me. Any plans to cover *what* is being assessed elsewhere...?

I hadn't thought about that yet, but it's an interesting question. Let me think about some options...
Ben, why don't you write to me directly:
[e-mail]
and we'll brainstorm.

[shweta mathur]

Kathy,
How abt the suggestions we had sent after the question sets review ?
Were they helpful ? I didn't hear anything from you after that. I hope you received them on time !!

[Bert Bates]

Shweta -
We want to thank you all for your wonderful assistance reviewing the questions for the book. The questions will be much cleaner, more consistent, and overall better because of your efforts. Kathy and I have a special surprise for all of the wonderful volunteers!!
-Bert

[Alfred Kemety]

Originally posted by Bert Bates:
Shweta -
Kathy and I have a special surprise for all of the wonderful volunteers!!
-Bert

I wonder what that is
[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Alfred Kemety ]

[Kathy Sierra]

Originally posted by Lance Titchkosky:
Amazon still shows it as not yet published.
thanks,

McGraw-Hill confirmed that the books have been shipped to all major distributors including Amazon. It just might take a few more days to wind their way through the system. I would expect them to be shipping from Amazon (and appearing in Borders/ B&N) by early next week.
So, any moment now : )
cheers,
Kathy