The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide: Programmer's and Developers Exams (With CD-ROM) [Hardcover]

Simon Roberts (Author), Philip Heller (Author), Michael Ernest (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0782128254 | ISBN-13: 978-0782128253 | Publication Date: September 14, 2000 | Edition: 2nd

This revised edition of the market-leading The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide offers new information on the developer exam, additional practice questions in the book and on the CD, and bonus coverage of Sun's partner certifications from IBM, Oracle, and Netscape. This Study Guide is the ultimate authority for both the programmer and the developer exams -- the lead author actually helped to develop the exams for Sun. The book is organized according to the official exam objectives and contains hundreds of review and sample-test questions.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Newly revised and updated for Java 2 standards, the second edition of The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide is packed with information on what you'll need to know to pass both the Sun Java Programmer and Developer Exams. With Java certification becoming ever more popular, this title is an essential resource for anyone who's preparing for it.

The cover of the book asserts that one of its team authors actually contributes questions to Sun's tests.

The goal here isn't so much to beat the testmakers (although the book has plenty to say about test-taking strategy) as it is to master the finer points of Java that you'll need to understand to succeed on the exam. The focus is on the areas that Sun has defined as important. The Programmer Exam--the first level of Sun certification--is covered first. Basic language features are reviewed, such as access specifiers, operators, and other keywords that will help make you an expert. (Some sections explain with great clarity the mysteries of Java's "extra" shift operator and other features.) Other chapters cover threads and multithreading strategies, as well as user-interface design with layout managers (which Sun considers important).

The second half of the volume concentrates on the Developer Exam, a more free-form exercise in which programmers write custom code, based on a specification from Sun. Two case studies, one for a room-scheduling application and another for a trouble-ticket system that tracks requests for technical support, illustrate this test. As the solution is presented, you'll learn how to build custom client/server software, and how to use Remote Method Invocation (RMI) and other advanced techniques. There's also advice for the best programming styles and choices for passing this challenging exam.

As in the previous edition, each chapter in this book concludes with sample questions (about 10 each) to help you study. In the new edition, there's now a full sample Programmer Exam (both printed and on the accompanying CD-ROM), which simulates the length and format of the real thing. In all, the new edition of this previously bestselling title will continue to provide helpful preparation for anyone who seeks Sun certification.

Despite the bulk (over 900 pages), this book actually makes for quick reading, and will help anyone decipher some of the more difficult aspects of the Java programming language. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Introduction to Sun certification and the Programmer Exam
• Java language fundamentals: primitive data types, literals, arrays, and garbage collection
• Java operators up close (including evaluation order and the shift operators)
• Access specifiers (public, private, default, and protected)
• Converting and casting rules in Java (including promotions)
• Flow-control statements
• Exception handling
• Object-oriented design primer
• Overloading and overriding
• Inheritance and subclassing
• Inner classes
• Threads and synchronization techniques
• Using the Math, String, and StringBuffer classes effectively
• The Java 2 Collections API
• Layout managers
• Event handling
• AWT components
• Painting
• File I/O
• Introduction to the Sun Developer Exam
• Sample room-reservation case study
• Working with Java databases
• Creating a client/server system from scratch
• Remote Method Invocation (RMI)
• Multithreading issues
• User-interface design with Swing
• Trouble-ticket problem tracker case study
• Using Swing JTable, JTree, and other Swing controls
• How to submit finished exam work to Sun
• Tips for the follow-up exam
• Sample Programmer Exam (including CD-ROM version)
• The future of Sun certification

From the Back Cover

Here’s the book you need to prepare for the Java 2 Programmer's and Developer's exams. This Study Guide provides:

• In-depth coverage of every exam objective for the Programmer's Exam for J2SE 1.4
• Hundreds of challenging practice questions
• Leading-edge exam preparation software, including a test engine, sample simulation questions, and the entire book on PDF

Authoritative coverage of all Programmer's exam objectives, including:

• Language fundamentals
• Operators and assignments
• Modifiers
• Converting and casting
• Flow control, exceptions, and assertions
• Objects and classes
• Threads
• The java.lang and java.util packages

In-depth coverage of the topics covered in the Developer's exam, including:

• Swing components and events
• Layout managers
• Enhancing and extending the database
• Writing the network protocol
• Building the database server
• Connecting the client and server

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 899 pages
• Publisher: Sybex Inc; 2nd edition (September 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782128254
• ISBN-13: 978-0782128253
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.6 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (237 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,534,949 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

371 of 374 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars May be Ultimate - but not ultimately enough, December 16, 1999

By 

Brian Bowman - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide (Hardcover)

Yesteday, I took the JAVA 2 Programmer Exam for the first time and passed with a very comfortable margin. This text helped alot and I do recommend it. However, I have to say that the real EXAM is MUCH more difficult then the practice questions in this book. The actual EXAM (at least the version I took) requires you to think though scenarios that are not obvious, even from the "strict" information provided in this book. If you want confidence to pass the test on the first try, I would do the following:

1) Read the Gosling book "The Java Programming" Language" and code many of the examples for youself. Use a good Java IDE to step though the code and understand what it does and how variables inside specific objects change.

2) Work through many of the AWT examples from the Java Tutorial (Books or WEB) using an IDE as above.

3) Thoroughly study "The Java 2 Exam Cram" by Bill Brogden AND do his mock EXAM - it's more difficult than the one in the book being reviewed.

4) Take some WEB based mock exams (like MindQ) and/or even purchase the gEs: Java Exam simulator.

Tests are kind of subjective in many ways. Some people are better test takers then others. I highly recommend a multi-faceted approach to preparing for this exam - especially if you want to really understand Java ... and not just pass the test.

I would also say that including the Java 2 API reference at the back of this book is pretty useless and adds signifcantly to the cost AND the WEIGHT of this book. The Java Developer's Almanac 1999 is the best concise desktop reference for the JAVA 2 API that I've seen.

157 of 159 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too big, too bulky, does not contain enough *important* info, February 3, 2000

By 

Andras Cser (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide (Hardcover)

I just passed the exam today with 80%.

DO NOT USE THIS BOOK *ONLY* FOR YOUR PREPARATION.

If you do, and you feel you understand everything in the book, the actual exam is going to be a big shock like it was for me for the first time when I took the exam. Like expressed by other reviewers, this book gives you the *false* feeling that you are ready to pass the exam - even if you read the whole thing. Repeat, if you feel you know everything in this book, you are most likely going to score an average of 50-60% on the real exam, which is not yet a passing score. Its lengthy style is very comprehensive, but you are much better off using your time wisely if you are trying to use this book only to *complement* the Java 2 Exam Cram by Bill Brogden. This book is particularly missing important elements and required knowledge on:

. Constructors . Inner classes . Interfaces . Utility classes (both old and new) . Java IO . Java Event Model . Casting and converting

All of the above are critical to pass the exam. Somehow this book strikes me as a book written by class instructors, not programmers (this is even mentioned in the "Introduction"), so a lot of Java hands-on experience is missing for me from it. There would be a lot more (perhaps one line) code snippets in the book to illustrate right and wrong concepts, valid and invalid lines. Sometimes this book fails to shed light on some class/interface hierarchies your will have to *know* (not just understand) to pass the exam. The book is not updated enough from Java 1.1 to Java 2. Also, do not even waste time on CD-ROM. It only contains low level questions already in the book.

I believe if you take the certification exam, you should have some Java programming experience. Write a small, but real application. This book - falsely - tries to lull you into the feeling of having that experience by explaining everything in lengthy, comfortable detail. This is NOT what is required of you at the examination: you will have to be able to answer test questions quickly and accurately.

Here's the method that worked for me after trying and failing the exam with this book only: Buy the Bill Brogden Java 2 Exam CRAM book. Make notes of it as you read it cover to cover, complement your notes with some of the AWT implications from this book, use Java 2 API documentation on GridBagLayout and the new Collection and Map interfaces which do come up in the real exma. Then learn your notes *by heart*. (There is a lot of stupid method signatures you will have to remember, some of which are not documented in either book, only in the Java2 API.) Make sure you download all the mock exams available on the internet and use Jxam (a freely available testing tool with hard enough questions, none of the others I found were hard enough compared to the real one) to test yourself. Write small example programs to grasp the concepts behind test questions. Modify and understand why and how they can be modified still to compile and run (and not to compile and/or not to run). If you can score about 80-90% with Jxam, you are likely to pass the real exam. Good luck.

67 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real review from someone who's read the book, December 12, 2000

By 

Mr Steve Ferris (Southampton, Hampshire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide: Programmer's and Developers Exams (With CD-ROM) (Hardcover)

Amazed at the negative reviews for this book I thought I would set matters straight. This book is the one and only book I recommend to my students who want to take Java Certification. Why? Because it was written by the people who wrote the examinations! They don't give you the answers directly, but you can bet all the answers are in this book somewhere.

The certification examinations are wide ranging in topic and sometimes the questions are quite esoteric even for knowledgeable Java programmers. Although on the face of it this book gives "useless messages" as another review puts it, lets qualify that statement. If the message is going to be in the exam then the it is far from useless. If the message takes up half the damn page to get the point across then perhaps the point is important? Perhaps the reviewer has not yet taken the exam?

If you are studying for the either the programmer or developer certifications in Java, you have many choices of books to use. I have both certifications and enterprise architect. I speak from experience. There is only one book where is clear, concise and complete. This one.