Okey, I passed the
SCEA examination finally. It is time to give a summary now.
Since 2000, I have been struggling for Java and Sun's certifications. I took part in
SCJP exam in 2001,
SCJD in 2003, and SCEA in 2005. It was a long procedure to pass SCEA. I took the Part-I exam in Aug 2005 and passed it with 83%, but used one year to prepare and finish PartII&III. The reason is I was too busy in my work. I just felt tired and didn't want to do anything after back home. I stopped my work one month to do the PartII assignment. It paid out too much, but it was worth a lot.
To prepare the Part-II, I created a folder named as 'SCEA/PartII' in my laptop. I put the download materials in it, also including my reading notes and design. Now there are more than 40M files in it. My bibliography includes:
1.Core J2EE�
Patterns: Best Practices and Design Strategies, Second Edition(Deepak Alur, John Crupi, Dan Malks)
2.Matering Enterprise JavaBeans<Third Edition> (Ed Roman, Rima Patel Sriganesh, Gerald Brose)
3.Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for
J2EE Technology Study Guid(Mark Cade,Simon Roberts)
4.Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for J2EE Study Guide (Exam 310-051)(Paul Allen and Joseph Bambara)
5.Design Patterns-Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software(GOF)
6.Java Design Patterns: A Tutorial (James W. Cooper)
I think Book 1&2 are valuable referenced materials for PartII, especially Book 1. I very very agreed to the comments from Martin Fowler 'Don't build an enterprise bean without it'. it would solve the design problems and bring non-functional benefits to your architecture by applying some core patterns in your design. Book 3,4,5,6 are mainly used in PartI. Of course, they are all the fundamentals for PartII. I referred to book 3 and 4 in PartII design.
After I downloaded the assignment from certmanager, I spent considerable time to read the materials and requirements. I am not an English speaker. I saw someone posted the suggestions 'read carefully your assignment until your eyes pop up' in ranch, and I made a foolish way to translate them into my native language. The assignment is tricky I think (just like Sun's
programmer certified exam), it is very very not similar to do a project in real life. My feeling just like on-the-fly, not walking on the ground. To make clear what on earth you need to do for your assignment, my only-one suggestion is to 'read and search the posting in javaranch day and night until your eyes pop up'. Using more searching function, less questions. I collected some valuable posting, which I classified them as 'somebody passed said':
1. James Ward(Member # 48997): posted June 29, 2003 11:38 PM
2. alain hsiung(Member # 44042): posted June 09, 2003 03:08 PM
3. aparna chintalapati(Member # 76073): posted October 27, 2004 10:04 AM (Five-Star level!!!)
4. Parag Doshi(Member # 75918): posted November 30, 2004 09:00 AM (Five-Star level!!!)
5. Matt Rea(Member # 48695): posted June 16, 2005 07:14 PM
6. Gavin Andrews(Member # 78368): posted January 10, 2005 11:34 AM
As an architect,
you should have the ability to transfer the business problem into abstract business model. We call such a procedure as OOA&D. The bibliography listed above does not include this part. I learned such a methodology through the ICONIX process by Doug Rosenberg and Kendall Scott. You could google it and find a
word document named as 'Driving Design with Use Cases'.
Before begin your design, it is better to learn the design example in Cade's book. My way was to design it by myself firstly, and then compared with Cade's answers. Another suggestion is to look through the PetStore example in J2EE Blueprints, read through the codes, and the description article from Sun:
link I began my design with the Class diagram, and then the Component, lastly the Sequence. I think someone would be interested in such a question 'how many classes or components in your diagram, and how many diagrams in your design', yes, I was also a fan overjoyed in this. I saw different posting on this question, and found no one standard answer for it. Just like many arguments in ranchers, you should have your own judgments for them. Make your choices in your best reasons, and keep your design clear and simple, and then upload it. The rest thing is 'Sit tight, Sun will highlight your life.'
