John Ringo

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since Feb 22, 2002
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Recent posts by John Ringo

I'd suggest overall about %60-70 for the first try on SCJP. This is the only site I've heard of any success for that test. At all other sites, if the certification is even mentioned, it's either failure, or someone wanting actual test questions.
I attribute that to this community knowing what it takes to become SCJP. I think the passing ratio of those who frequent this site is about %80-%90. That's just a guess though.
Peace...
21 years ago
I forgot to mention what a great resource the Java Ranch has been. It is actually better than any of the books. I like the cows game. It actually is good for teaching us beginners something. There are many here who are well beyond where I'll ever be with this language, and I thank them for their patience in answering our questions and offering constructive advice. Java Ranch is the #1 resource for this certification. There's not really another good support community out there for Java geeks and I don't know if I would have made it without hte ranch.
I suggest hitting as man mock exams as possible. Then when you answer a question wrong, look it up and find out why. This has really helped me. Coding is something of a trial and error processes for beginners like my self. Coding is absolutely necessary as well. The Mock Exam's are good though. Figure out why you're answers are wrong, and you will learn. Hit the books and look this stuff up.
21 years ago
I passed with 83%. I've been studying for this test for 13 months. It hasn't come all that easy, since programming isn't my primary field. I've went through a couple of sets of CBT's from Sun and 4 Java books including: Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days (SAMS), Complete JAVA 2 Certification (Sybex), Exam Cram (Corollis), How To Program in Java (Dietel and Dietel).
I'm pleased with my results and I would have been pleased with any passing score on this moster. I was very nervous prior to the test. BTW: I went for 1.2, because that's what I started studying for 13 months ago.
Study up notes:
1) Questions on java.io Package. I several questions with FileInputStream, FileOutputStream, DataInputStream, etc... It's hard to find good information on all the implementations of these. The ones I mentioned plus a couple others are well worth knowing. This was my worst area on the test.
2) Threads got a pretty heavy weighting. If you've been coding, you probably know them as well as I do. You need to know the two ways to create a thread, how to start a thread, syncronized threads, all the stop, sleep, yeild, wait, notify, and join stuff.
3) java.util package: several questions. All you need to know is the differences between the types: StoredSet, Map, HashMap, and so forth.
4) I got 85% on Overloading, Overriding, Runtime Type, and Object Orientations. There were so, many questions on overloading and overriding. You need to know everything about overloading/overriding methods AND constructors. There was a question on constructors, or you may not even be able to answer some questions that aren't even of this category. I'm not kidding; overloading and overriding comes up so much, that you can hardly pass if you don't know it.
5) Inner Class constructors as well as abstract inner classes: Well worth knowing.
6) java.awt package: a few questions. I don't know how you could not ace this portion if you've been coding.
7) java.lang package: You need to know throws, throwable, Error, Runtime Exception. At least a few questions on these.
8) A couple of easy questions on garbage colection.
9) Flow control and exception handeling: You need to know the while, for, and do loops forward and backwards. As well as case, and try/catch/finally.
10) Operators and Assignements: Not only do you need to know all the operators, but you need to know when a conversion of certain types happens with them.
I hope this helps someone. If you do what I said and do it dilligently you probably pass the test if you got the draw I did from the pot.
One last note: If you sit the test, look for dumb little errors in the code: A bad import, a bad main method, wrong access modifiers for a method, etc... Sun will do their best to trick you.
Peace,
John
21 years ago
Since many of you have taken the exam, I just have one quick question. Are you allowed to go back and review questions and change the answers after you have answered them once? Thanks!
v/r,
John
21 years ago
I would retake the 1.2... You were very close. I'm afraid that if I took it now I too would be in the high 50's or low 60's. I need to get a little better at analyzing some of the code...
21 years ago
The amount of memory the JVM needs depends on the OS and how the JVM is implemented. I don't think it's really of any consequence, allthough the more memory the better.
Total memory is the amount of physical memory that your system has. Free memory is memory that is not in use on your system at a given point in time.
21 years ago
I'm going to stick with 1.2 and take that in the next couple of weeks. I see no reason to switch gears. I seriously doubt that an employer would prefer a 1.4 certified individual over a 1.2 or vice versa. That would be a poor criteria to hire someone on.
IMHO: The cert is the cert.
Thanks... So I figure on a couple of months or maybe a little more. I plan on taking all the beta's for Solaris 9 during the same time, so I'm going be hitting the books quite a bit I guess.
Does anyone know when 310-025 will retire and the new exam will replace it? I've been working hard on this and I'm just almost ready, but not quite there. I don't know if I'd be comfortable with the new exam. I guess I'd prefer to test on 025, but at the rate my studying is going it may take another two months for me to be ready. Thanks!
Thanks for the help Roy... works fine. The best thing is I actually understand it now, I think. I had to put the setVisible in both the init and start methods. Thanks again. It's fun to see this stuff actually work.
21 years ago
I've known people with a CS degree that couldn't code a thing or even hook up a disk drive. That said, I've known people with certs that couldn't do much of anything either. Knowledge doesn't main much unless you know how to use it anyway.
Personally I'm working on the SCJP and learning a lot as I go. I learned a lot from every cert I've achieved including SCSA, SCNA, CCNA, and OCP. I like the certs, becuase I control the when/where of study. That and I had misfortune in college years ago with cirriculum selection.
Maybe one day I'll get a degree. Until then I'm happy learning, getting certs, and having fun.
Thanks for the replies Ria and Roy. When I do all that it compiles okay. It's actually making more sense to me now, and I thank you both for that. When I do exactly what Roy said about extendend from Frame, setBounds, setVisible, and making the main object it compiles and I get the follwing when I run it with "java CalcEvent.":
Exeption in Thread "main" Java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.awt.Container.addImpl(Container.java:439)
at java.awt.Container.add(Container.java:3100
at CalcEvent.start(CalcEvent.java:82)
at CalcEvent.main(CalcEvent.java:186)
I've tried to add a throws clause for the start and main, but no it didn't work... maybe I should use a try/catch... I have no idea what to do about two AWT exceptions anyway. Any more ideas would be apprecaited.
21 years ago

I've tried to add the main method right before and after the CalcEvent class declaration, but no luck. Thanks!
[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: Dirk Schreckmann ]
21 years ago
I've searched on this here and I can't find the answer. My question is pretty basic. So far I've gotten a few applets to compile and run, but when I try make a program out of them I can't make it happen. I want to be able to just type java "classname" and run it without using applet viewer or a browser.
I'm adding the "public static void main (String[] args)" line I can't get them to compile, let alone run as a program. I get the following error: 'class' or 'interface' expected. It doesn't seem to matter where I add this line.
I would appreciate any help anyone can provide. Thanks in advance.
21 years ago
Thanks John. The more ways the better.
21 years ago