Archive for the ‘Java’ Category

Sun Second Shot Program for Certification Testing

Wednesday, July 5th, 2006

For a limited time, Sun is offering a free second chance to pass some of their certification tests. Get the full program details here: Sun Second Shot Promotion

The summary is:

Limited Time Offer

Purchase a voucher for most Java technology or Solaris OS certification exams between July 1 and August 15, 2006, and should you need it, you can take the exam one additional time for free. The retake exam must be taken by August 15, 2007 the following year. This offer is available in most countries around the world. Use Priority Code WW46CXR when signing up

The fine prints says that the voucher is valid for up to one year, so if you are planning on taking a certification test in the near future, you should go ahead and sign up using this deal before August 15, 2006 to get the second chance offer even if you don’t schedule the exam till sometime in the future. I’m still working on the Sun Certified Java Developer (SCJD) programming assignment, but I may sign up to take the Sun Certified Enterprise Architect (SCEA) test to get this deal.

Here are the exams that qualify:

Qualifying Sun Certification Exams in Java Technology

Sun Certified Java Associate (SCJA)

Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP)

Sun Certified Web Component Developer (SCWCD)

Sun Certified Business Component Developer (SCBCD)

Sun Certified Developer for Java Web Services (SCDJWS)

Sun Certified Enterprise Architect (SCEA)

Sun Certified Mobile Application Developer (SCMAD)

Qualifying Sun Certification Exams in the Solaris OS

Sun Certified System Administrator (SCSA)

Solaris 10 OS

Solaris 9 OS

Solaris 8 OS

Sun Certified Network Administrator (SCNA)

Solaris 10 OS

Solaris 9 OS

Solaris 8 OS

Sun Certified Security Administrator (SCSECA)

Solaris 9 OS

Posted in Java, Technology | No Comments »

Goodbye Scott, Hello Jonathan

Monday, April 24th, 2006

After being merely a rumor for the past couple of weeks, today it was announced that Scott McNealy would be stepping down as CEO of Sun Microsystems (while remaining Chairman) and Jonathan Schwartz (blogger in his own right) would be taking his place. I’m not sure what this means for the future of Sun as they go forward. While they have not been posting great financial numbers over the past couple of years, it seemed they had been making some great strides that would lead them to profitability (OpenSolaris.org, DTrace, New Server Innovations, and OpenSparc.net) not to mention some of their aquisitions of profitable companies.

We’ll see what the future holds. Good luck to Scott and welcome up the ladder Jonathan. Hopefully this will bring good things for the future of Java and FOSS (which Jonathan is a huge proponent for).

Posted in Java, Technology | 2 Comments »

Is Java Bad for Computer Science Programs

Thursday, December 29th, 2005

Joel Spolsky just put out another fantastic article. This time it is on The Perils of Java Schools. It talks about how the ease of use of Java (feature of the language) tends to not weed out those that don’t really have the mindset to be good computer scientists.

In part I do agree with this. I have seen this firsthand at the university I graduated from. I took a data structures course in C++ that was the most challenging course I have ever had. Lots of pointers, lots of crashing my development machine while incorrectly manipulating those pointers, lots of Big O Notation and efficiency talk. Good stuff, and it made me a better programmer through the experience.

Fast forward to today, and the department at that university has moved to eliminate data structures in C++ except for those doing a pure Computer Science path (versus the other two tracks in Information Systems and Information Technology which do a “data structures” course in Visual Basic).

While I love Java dearly (and am certified in it and use it daily in my day job), I agree that data structures in C or C++ is hard and necessary to weed out those that don’t belong in the field. I have a friend that worked in the department and taught the data structures course in C++. He caught an amazing amount of flack from the administrators for the drop and failure rate in this course. They viewed it as a bad thing, I think he was doing these kids a valuable service by making the course challenging (and fair I might add). He was also doing a great service for programmers as a whole. Nothing worse than second rate programmers watering down the quality and pay scale in our industry. Hurts us all in the long run. Things like this tend to highlight that higher education (like almost everything these days) is really a business at its core. The adminsitrators want warm bodies paying tuition for 4 to 5 years so they can pay salaries, get raises, and eventually retire. The focus isn’t always on education, lifelong learning, and achieving a well rounded intellect.

Check out the article and let me know what you think…

Posted in Java, Technology | 1 Comment »