Peter Rooke

There are a set of certification books, but they are now out of date since the framework and the various certification objectives have changed significantly.
Already answered in another JR thread JR thread

This is the book Certified Professional Spring Developer Exam and there are others for the other two old certifications; system integration and web developer.  

It looks like there is an updated version of the book, but its not due until next year Core Spring 5 Developer Exam

I hear that blockchain technologies help to mitagte the traveling salesman problem (in terms of IT system integration).  Does not solve the problem, but it becomes less of an issue if all systems [eventually] end up with a trusted copy of the common information (the ledger) due to a consensus algorithm.  The main issue seems to be that of speed, or the lack of it.     Blockchain Concepts

I guess the dinosaurs (mainframes) in their dinosaur pens just downsized and evolved into birds (datacenter servers) flying high in the clouds.

I'm glad to say that for the most part I managed to avoid mainframes, but here's a humorous article about those old [DevOps] VAX/VMS days; GNU Humor - the VAXORCIST

   

Why not be language agnostic, that is don't focus on any particular language or technology.  For the simple reason that once you introduce a particular language at the start then it become a matter of teaching that languages syntax.  I just feel that you could achieve more if you concentrated on the principals of programming/software development.  You could introduce a subject, and then give examples in a particular language(s).  

Maybe you should start with the Java Tutorial Docs rather than the actual API documentation.  

what is <T>?

- part of Java's support for generics, which is covered within the collections documentation;
Java Collections

Optional seems to be used to try and deal with the null type that causes so many problems in Java (and also other languages).  

i feel like a mouse in a very big java maze

, yes we all do and the maze seems to be forever growing!  Trick is not to worry as nobody can know everything, but after a while you will notice that technology changes the fundamental concepts don't.  

Recruitment seems to be broken (in the UK) as recruitment agency staff don't seem to have a clue about the technical aspects of job specifications.  
It seems that they just match words and phrases from an inflated job description with CV's [resumes].    

This document epitomises the situation perfectly, whoever wrote it does not seem to have a good understanding of the technologies.  

Moreover, Spring MVC is only a part of the complex solution, which can take care of many aspects of your application, (such as testing or data access).  

- Close but "no cigar"    , as there are other Spring projects to access data like spring data, which (hopefully) is used in the model packages.  

I'm often frustrated by the term "Full Stack" where nobody really knows what the stack actually is, but everyone must have experience of it!

Yeah, best do the official Pivotal training then; Spring Professional Certification

The courses tend to be delivered by actual spring developers, but it's probably best if you understand the fundamentals before the course.  Unless the format has changed since the V4 course, then the schedule will be split between presentations and labs.  The labs used STS (of course) so it is also useful to be familiar with this IDE.    

Other courses and options exist, and you no longer need to do the course before taking the exam.    

One of the many custom IT systems that ships use.  From what little I know it records the ships status and voyage details and therefore it is plugged into the ships major systems.  Expect it has a homing beacon to assist surface or underwater recovery.

I know that some vehicle insurance companies have started offering lower premiums if you allow them to install a black box which records journey details.  
Almost Orwellian in some ways (IMHO).        

   

Spring Docs main page
All the documentation for every project

The framework is large, and so split into many different projects.  So it will be a case of looking at the documentation for a specific technology which is a objective on the exam.  Here is the core spring documentation;  The latest core Spring reference guide

Some parts of the book will still be relevant, the core topics like spring dependancy injection, bean lifecycle, aspect oriented programming, testing, model/view/controller, REST web services.  Other old topics which were dropped for the newer certification, can just be ingored, technologies like spring remote method innovation, SOAP web services for example.  

In summary I'll use both books along with Spring Boot in action.   And also the official documentation which is always very good.

Good luck.  

Using transactions with data definition language SQL statements is vendor dependant.   Most don't support them, since you're typically altering the internals that support the actual schema definition.  

The advantage of being able to do so is so you can script your schema upgrade and know that it's either been completely successful or not.  

Here's an article that discusses this; Why You Should Care That Your SQL DDL is Transactional

Oak, Sparkler, Pumpkin, Abigail, Brutus, Chelsea, Playground, Cricket, Kestrel, Ladybird, Merlin, Hopper, Mantis, Tiger, Mustang, Dolphin, Spider.  
Seems that major releases were (mostly) named after animals/birds and minor bugfixes after [bug eating] insects.    

Are you telling me that “Yes, Minister” was fictional?

Sadly it seems to be the way in which Government operates;
"Humphrey is a master of obfuscation and manipulation, baffling his opponents with long-winded technical jargon and circumlocutions, strategically appointing allies to supposedly impartial boards, and setting up interdepartmental committees to smother his minister's proposals in red tape."  [Wiki].

Just filled out a local government questionnaire, when it seemed they were trying to use emotive language and specific questions to get the result they required!
The political satire Leading Questions - Yes Prime Minister seems to sum up this perfectly!

I don't recall when I first started using a personal mobile phone, but it was some sort of Motorola brick.

However, I do recall my first (and last) company phone, a BlackBerry 7230.  Did think it was kind of cool being able to use emails and text messages anywhere at anytime, but it soon became a burden.  Head office would often send out messages and want an instance reponse, issue was that they were in America and we were in the UK.