Getting certified on which version ?

[Albert Kam]

Hi People,

Here's the short story : My boss wants me to be certified which means i'm going to go through scjp exam. :-D

Now i'm quite dillematic about which version of JDK to take as we're still quite stuck using JDK 1.4.x version. Actually i pretty much want to upgrade all of our company's projects to Mustang (and take the Java 6 exam), but that'd be too risky and costly if there are 'changes' that effect our already running projects, especially on the reporting and printing. They could be at different locations using different JDK.

If i'm going to take 1.4 exam, i'll be studying from the book which discusses the 1.4, and not the Java 6, because the points to be tested are going to be different, am i right ?

Please share your thoughts. What version will you take if you were in my position ?

Thank you,
Albert Kam

[Christophe Verré]

 

What version will you take if you were in my position ?

I would go for the latest. You'd miss a lot of important stuff if you stick to 1.4. Even if you're using only JDK1.4, I think that you should take the opportunity to try at least 5.0.

[Albert Kam]

Thanks for the thoughts !

Can i safely say that if i pass Java 6, i already pass Java 1.4 too ? I mean there could be some spesific stuffs in Java 1.4 that are to be aware of which doesnt exist anymore on Java 6 ? I'm not sure, hehe ..

I just feel uneasy if i'm taking a different version with what is actually used on the field.

I'd like to discuss about experiences in getting 'stuck' in older JDK with legacy projects, but that should be on another thread.

[Jesper de Jong]

Nothing was removed in Java 5 and 6, at least not from the language or the standard library, compared to Java 1.4 - everything that runs on Java 1.4 runs on Java 5 and 6 without modifications. A lot of new things have been added though.

There are some subjects that were removed from the SCJP exam going from version 1.4 to 5. For example, bit-shift operators are not on the SCJP 5 exam anymore. See Sun's SCJP pages for details on the differences between different versions of the exam.

I'd do at least SCJP 5. Java 1.4 is a really old version.

[Deepak Bala]

Go for SCJP 6