Hi Ryan,
Well, that is a nice sentiment, but the truth is a little more complicated. When I was with Sun, I was the lead on selecting the objectives for SCWCD (and for SCJP for
Java v1.5 and
SCJA). The way I did this was to (a) review the technology, (b) ask specification leads, and (c) ask SMEs. In the end, there were many political choices made. One SME really felt that "JSP Documents (XML-based JSPs) were the next big thing and everyone must know about them" While others felt that web developers must know all tag library mechanisms. This type of politicing leads to a bigger and muddier exam. I would let my group of SMEs vote on these issues, but in the end I often allowed more objectives in than I should have.
The alternative is to have one person dictate what will be on the exam objectives, but this strategy is only as strong as the dictator and I never felt that confident. So, I opted for the community (or the much-maligned "committee") approached.
Now that I am no longer with Sun, I am not in that position anymore.
Cheers,
Bryan