Tyler Lebowski

Use BoUML. It's lightweight and exports nicely to HTML.

Good question - and I have the answer.

I'm the only person to ever pass all three parts of the exam. Everyone else here is lying.

So, let's assume that there are 9,999 liars and me. That puts the success ratio at 1/10,000 or 0.01%.

Hope that helps!

Hmmm, would you submit these diagrams to a client with "Evaluation Copy" or "Unregistered Copy" on them?

I think not!

Congrats Harish!

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Tyler
- Certified in more subjects than you

You need to produce as many diagrams as you need to clearly convey your design/architecture to the grader(s).

Your best bet is to assume that you'll have more than 3 diagrams but probably not more than 15. It depends on your comfort level and level of detail.

Just keep your diagrams clear and free from too much clutter. If one starts to look messy, split it into two diagrams.

http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/CX-310-300A.xml

If you diligently worked on Part 2, you could take Part 3 totally shnockered on Yagermeister - honestly, you could.

If you took a lot of shortcuts and don't fully understand your design choices and why you selected those over other options, you may have some difficulty with Part 3.

It depends on how much time you spend on it each day.

Step 1: Work on understanding the case study and get going on your high level architecture for a couple of hours each day for a week.

Step 2: Take one or two days off and go drink a few pints with a midget and ride your unicycle around town.

Step 3: Re-visit the problem and your solution and work on it for a couple of hours every day for another couple of weeks.

Step 4: Go to Step 2

Step 5: Pull an "all-nighter" and revise most of your solution radically and then submit it

Step 6: Take Part 3 without preparing for it at all - perhaps even a pint or two before taking it will most likely help.

Step 7: Get back on your unicycle and meet the midget again at a pub and get all messed up.

Step 8: Ask your boss for a raise because you received your SCEA certificate and because you rode your unicycle into a small roadside stand that sells glass menageries and destroyed $1,750 worth of little Elmo figurines.

All in all, you'll spend around 40-50 hours on it. Any less and you may be too smart for the rest of us, you cheated or your documentation/presentation stinks. Any more and you should probably think about getting a job at a glass menagerie stand with guard rails around it to protect yourself from drunk SCEAs on their unicycles.

What if the Travel Agent is really a robot or a telephony system? What happens if the phone system shuts down?

Remember, when developing your architecture which will no doubt be implemented by FlyByNight, that there will be many, many developers and employees who consistently perform in a "Less Than Expected" capacity working on maintaining your solution. Now, with that said, keep the KISS principle in mind (Keep It Simple Stupid!).

These are things technology architects worry about all the time...that and drinking beer.

Some JDKs promise better performance on some platforms, but the differences are most likely negligable.

Most of these vendor-specific and vendor-geared JDKs are developed in support of a product (e.g. an application server) and not necessarily a specific platform.

Oh, and by the way, I'm sorry you have to use Windows Vista.

The SCEA is to gauge your knowledge level on software architecture, not necessarily how it is implemented.

With that said, the current assignment can be completed using EJB 3.0...and for that matter using .NET, COBOL, SmallTalk, etc., however, we are limited to a J2EE solution.

This does not preclude anyone from EJB 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0.

You can present them any way you like as long as:

1. Your diagrams describe a solution that meets the requirements
2. Your diagrams conform to UML standards
2. Label and describe each diagram
3. You explain the manner in which you present your diagrams

For the most part, even the most radical of assignment submissions will most likely contain a logical set of diagrams.

I'd recommend BOUML. It's incredibly lightweight and provides everything that you'll need and more.

I tried JUDE and found it much more cumbersome to work with than BOUML.

Of course, if your a sadist, you could use a Rational product...shouldn't they rename their products "Irrational"?

Sure thing.

Actually, does anyone want to join my new company?

I'm looking for developers to build an airline reservation system and a Pet Store...

Avoid Visio at all costs.

If you have a computer with Visio installed on it, pull the plug and run as fast as possible to the nearest fallout shelter.

There are many, many, MANY open source UML projects that are available free of charge that work much better than Visio.

Do a Google search for "UML Tools" and you'll see. Download a couple of them, see which one you like best and use it.