Abhaya Rajakarunanayake

I took this exam yesterday and got a print out like you said. Thankfully, the status of my exam on Pearson shows as 'Taken'. I didn't do anything different - well the only thing I didn't do was click on the timer!

Few more things about the test:
1. The strangest thing was as you have mentioned, there was no timer. However, went a few minutes past 2 hours and I could still make changes (this I knew by setting my stop watch as soon as I agreed to the Tc and Cs). The proctor was nowhere to be seen (in fact I found out that she was in a different floor altogether) and didn't come to tell me my time was up. So I took my time and did some 'proof reading' and finally clicked on the 'end exam' button after about 10-15 mins! (OK I hope admitting that does not land me in trouble ) And then the lady proctoring the exam (who had been watching me over CCTV) asked why I was typing so much for a multiple choice exam!!! I did mention to her that it never timed out - Oh, I handn't realised' was her reply

2. Contrary to what everyone says on this site and on personal blogs, there are clipboard facilities - copy, cut and paste. These three buttons are there just above the text area that you are supposed to type your answer in. So I guess this is something new they have added after moving over to Pearson. Oh and they work as well. I tried it while waiting for my infinite clock to timeout

3. Personally I prefer the Pearson interface - the Prometric one used to look very Java 1.1.

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:

Abhaya Rajakarunanayake wrote:If the session facade is stateful, is it the handle of the session facade that I need to store in my HttpSession? This would seem to make sense to me, rather than the handle for the shopping cart itself.

I think so. I've never had the need to use a Stateful bean in practice. One thing I don't get: if you have a HttpSession, why do you need the stateful bean? You already have a place to keep state - the HttpSession.

Ah yes, the question everybody asks. Well, given the description of my assignment, I thought I'd future proof my solution so that the application can be opened up to different channels. I am thinking of a call centre application for example which would have a different Java client. This way, you are re-using a key component as well as keeping your business logic away from the web tier. Also - @Statefuls are more transaction aware - they can roll back if thing go up in the air (according to what I've read).

overkill? possibly at this point but who knows where the business will be in the future with a 200% annual growth in the industry! Do you think that is a compelling argument?

Hi Uma,

I think the Biz Delegate should talk to the stateful bean (session facade). I would have some indirection between the servlet and EJB (hence the delegate). This keeps things clean and also shows you know your JEE patterns. It has quite a few other benefits as well.

1. Why use locater when you have Resource Injection?
2. EJB3 does not have handles similar to 2.x

Abhaya

Jeanne, Many thanks for this. I do have one follow up question though.

If the session facade is stateful, is it the handle of the session facade that I need to store in my HttpSession? This would seem to make sense to me, rather than the handle for the shopping cart itself.

Abhaya.

Hi Good people at the Ranch,

I am working on my assignment at the moment and have two queries which I hope you guys can help me put to rest.

1. Instead of a single class diagram, I have divided my classes in line with the tiers - web, services and domain. This way I can show, not only my improved domain model but also the service classes comprising the facades etc. IMHO this presents a clearer view to the examiner rather than just the domain objects and a few controller and managers. Any thoughts?

2. In order to future proof my SuD, I have decided (for the moment ) to have my shopping cart as @Stateful. My question is, should the session facade controlling access to this Bean also be @Stateful? At the moment it is @Stateless.

Thanks
Abhaya

Thanks Anand.

I would say that you need a good overview knowledge of all these - make yourself familiar with the material in the JEE tutorial. Although a lot of people mention that they got a lot of questions on Web services I didnt get much - probably an exception.

There are no free tests for the JEE edition but a couple for the previous edition which are still good - apart from EJB and WS, most of the other aspects remain the same in the current version. Try these:

http://www.moelholm.com/moelholmweb/pages/mocks/mocks_scea.xml
http://www.harishramchandani.com/

Hope this helps. Good luck
Abhaya

Thanks Deepak.

I spent about 90 mins a day for 2 - 2.5 months. I didn't do any work on weekends. The most amount of time spent was on patterns due to the sheer volume (GOF + J2EE). Hope this helps and good luck to you.

Abhaya

Hi Amandeep,

There is no UML in the test but I would recommend Fowler's UML distilled as an excellent guide and reference

Cheers
Abhaya

Passed part 1 with 71% on Monday. Initially had mixed feelings about the mark I got. Was a bit disappointed since I scored in the mid to top nineties on all the practice tests I did. But overall I am happy because I think the test maintains a high standard and I did think that the practice tests were 'quite easy'.

I owe a lot of gratitude to this forum which is without doubt the best resource for SCEA. All this while I have been a silent observer but hop to be more of an active member adding my two cents worth

If any one is interested here is a list of resources I made use of:
1. SCEA Architect for J2EE by Cade and Roberts - this is for the older version but helps keep you focused.
2. MZ - particularly for security - this a a fantastic resource
3. Mastering JavaServer Faces - Bill Dudney et al - chapter 1 for architecture overview
4. Head First Design Patterns - didnt read this specifically for the exam but the rubber ducks and pizzas always stick in my mind :-)
5. EJB3 in Action - again this was some time ago back dipped back into this for reference
6. JEE tutorial - specifically JAX-WS, JAXB and Persistence
7. practice tests by Whizlabs - over simplified. only the final mock test comes anywhere close to the standard. marking is wrong as well (partial marks for partially correct answers - so you need to do manual check to get the correct picture)
8. Sun practice tests - 2 tests - the second one is closer (but still not as hard as) the real thing

Few obervations from my experience:
1. If you have been actively involved with Java/J2EE for more than 5+ years, you are halfway there already. A lot of stuff is obvious if you have 'been there and done that'. SO if you feel you have depth and breadth you will do well.
2. Although you are not expected to know code or remeber API calls, the test does ask these questions in a round about way.
3. Do not expect direct questions on patterns (my favourite area) - but the key thing is that the answer is clearly there in the scenario described. You may have to re-read and read between the lines but there will be some key words that point to a particular pattern and if you know your patterns and can extrapolate you will ace them - after all that is the job of an architect.
4. In general I felt there was more than enough time

Thanks to all the ranchers for helping me and all the best for anyone taking this - it is a great experience not only bacause you learn so much that you should know in the business but also corroborates the fact that you already knew quite a bit without realing it.

Abhaya

Hi Rama,

Congratulations on making this hurdle! Great stuff.

I am planning to do this sometime soon and just want to ask you one thing:
On the questions that there are more than one possible answer (i.e. checkboxes), does the question indicate how many answers to check? I am doing the Whizlabs practice tests at the moment and these do not specify this.

Thanks in advance and best of luck for Parts 2 and 3.

Abhaya

hi,

i have created my own validator class for validating certain fields which are beyond the default validation scope (e.g. telephone, postcode, username already exists etc.) and have linked it to the validator-rules.xml file.

when the input field is invalid, i do get the appropriate error msg so this works ok. however, the problem is when all fields have valid input. In this instance, the flow goes to my validator class and returns true, but instead of going to the action, it returns to the jsp page. there are no errors displayed, just that it wont move to the action.

i've checked my struts-config, validator-rules and validation files and they are identical to those in the 'how-to's on the struts site. the only difference is that i have several struts config files, but the validator plugin is only in the main struts-config.xml

i am completly stumped on this one.
cheers,
abhaya