Other certifcations to think about ?

[Larry Guild]

I may have some time on my hands which is why I am studying for SCJP.
I am wondering allready which certifications to look into after I go through SCJP. I see the Business component is very popular, but I am not
sure the world of application development is the most challenging and rewarding.

As far as the web component,
I allready have an idea of what HTML, CGI, and http are about, and am not sure that learning how java does what will be that interesting.
I have played around with Perl LWP, cgi etc. I am interested in JSP
and servlets so those parts I might find interesting.

I have played around with SOAP in perl, so maybe the web services exam might be interesting and perhaps mobile phones enabled with java is an up and coming thing, but if the API changes very fast, what you learn will become less relevant.

Do all these exams cost the same $150 ? Are some harder or much easier ?

[Christophe Verré]

First of all, I'd like to say : Don't be in such a hurry
Concentrate on SCJP first, and you'll have plenty of time to think about the next, after you've passed.

I allready have an idea of what HTML, CGI, and http are about, and am not sure that learning how java does what will be that interesting.

Don't underestimate the value of SCWCD. I'm sure you'll learn plenty of things.
It's all about Servlets 2.4, JSP 2.0, JSTL.

Difficulty may be differently felt, depending on people.
Some may feel more comfortable with EJB, others not.
SCWCD is a lot of "remembering" stuff. Like tag attributes, API.
Remembering the several ways to make custom tags...

Concerning Web Services, except if you need it for a job, you may consider taking it later on.

About the prices, check at Sun's homepage.
http://www.sun.com/training/certification/java/

Good luck.