J Fitzryan

You might get asked what you did during the gap, but just have a canned reply ready, something like "It was a mixture of vacation and professional development." Noone will care. Use the time to learn J2EE and design patterns.

I'm creating an application that will allow our consultants to create and edit a specific type of hierarchy. The obvious component for this would be JTree, but the consultants want something that looks more like a text editor, perhaps a JTextArea. The problem is, they'd like to be able to collape parts of the hierarchy. Can this be done with a JTextArea, or do I need to use a JTree?
Also, does anyone know if it's possible to give a JTextArea a macro facility or user-defined keyboard navigation combos?

I recently completed a search for a Java development position and felt similar frustration. Nine out of ten companies that are looking for Java developers won't consider hiring someone without Java experience.
Here's what I suggest:
1. Don't put a lot of faith in staffing agencies. Companies tell them to find experienced Java developers, so the agencies aren't going to want to take a chance on you.
2. Obtain Developer certification. Not only will this look good on your resume, but you'll do a programming assignment that you can share as a sample of what you can do.
3. Read up on EJBs and servlets. Three out of four companies are looking for people familiar with these technologies.
4. Post your resume on a variety of websites: Dice, Monster, etc. But don't put your phone number on it; just your email address.

Thanks, Jesse.
I don't agree with the designers' decision not to optimize at the compiler level. It's nuts to make the VM have to deal with stuff like
for (i=0;i<5;i++)
x = 4 + 2;

I'm investigating Java compiler optimizations. Are there any compilers out there besides javac and Jikes? I'd like to examine as many compilers as possible.

I took the 1.2 exam. Perhaps Sun made it shorter than the 1.1 exam.

Originally posted by Balaji:
Congrats for completing the Developer Certification.
U have done a great job Fitzryan.
Since I am also in the process of doing the assignment, I would request U to help me in this regard.
How long U took to do the assignment & what books did U refered.

The assignment probably took me 60 hours spread over two months, but I didn't know RMI and hadn't done any Swing programming.
I found Peter Van Der Linden's "Just Java" helpful for RMI and Swing. The RMI tutorial on Sun's Java website was also helpful and it provided critical background information on RMI. The Developer section of the Java Certification Guide by Heller, Roberts, and Ernest was worthless. This surprised me because the Programmer section was excellent.
Several other books have short sections on the Developer Exam. I wouldn't recommend buying any of them but you migh want to read them over in a bookstore.
The most difficult aspect of the assignment was keeping the GUI responsive while waiting for the user to specify how many seats to reserve and while waiting for a lock on the flight record to be acquired.

I just received my developer certification. The biggest surprises of the entire process were on the written exam. It only took 15 minutes but there were some tricky questions. I recommend that future test takers do some reading on the technologies used in the project.