1.5 or 1.6 certification

[A Harry]

Hi, I currently have the 1.4 programmer certification but as I've got a few weeks between contracts thought I'd update it!

Only trouble is, you'd think it would make more sense to go for 1.6 but very few companies I've worked for are actually using 1.5 yet - still stuck on 1.4!

So my question is, is it worth going for 1.6 certification when companies do move up are the more likely to go straight to 1.6?

This is getting very difficult to keep up with, Sun seem to be racing away without considering the effects on companies!

thanks in advance

harry

[Theodore Casser]

*blinks a little bit*

Actually, compared to other companies in the space *cough*IBM*cough*, Sun's not moving quickly at all with certifications and product versions. Java's coming out with a version for SE about once every 18-24 months, and that's not horribly quick when push comes to shove.

I don't think that Sun's announced an exam for Java SE 6 - for starters, it's lower on the list of priorities than updating other exams, and as far as I'm aware, it didn't add all that much that they might feel needs to be tested in a form that's different than the Java SE 5.0 exam. Plus, there is a precedent for Sun's not having a SCJP version for a given version of Java - they didn't have one for 1.3.

And, finally... my company moved from 1.4 to 5.0 only about a year ago. I don't think we're going to end up moving to 6 any time soon, so I'm not sweating the details. If you're really worried about keeping current, I'd look towards the 5.0 upgrade and take that.

[Barry Gaunt]

Yes, what SCJP 6.0?

[A Harry]

thanks for you views, just wanted someone to tell me what I thought was the right way to to go anyway!