Hi !
I would say SCWCD for sure, then SCBCD, then SCEA.
In fact, apart for your personal benefit, certs are valuable for employers only if they confirm your carrer situation and function. If you are a Java programmer, SCEA is totally useless because anyone can pass a cert even tough with much work despite no experience, but if you are employed since a good deal of time as lead Developer and have SCEA, then it is higly probable you own the practical skills your cert suggests. Appart from enhancing your knowledge, on the job field your certs MUST match your carrer level to be any worth.
What is more, moving from SCJP to SCEA looks totally insane to me, like passing from apprentice to expert without any level between. SCEA implies an AWFUL LOT of sophisticated techologies to practice, either standard or so promising or widespread you must know them anyway : EJB, JNDI, JSP, Servlets, JDO, JSP, Struts,
ANT, RDBMS, concurrency/transactions, XML, Web Services, application servers management, OS network services management, HTML, Java, DotNet theory for comparison, ..., I forget many but many of these items deserve a full job of their own. Passing intermediate certs will leverage much the hardship of the enormous step between SCJP & SCEA.
What is more SCEA is quite expensive for there are 3 paying parts which need someone to supervise you, while SCWCD & SCBCD are much cheaper (about 150 U.S $), so it is much more sensible to take SCWCD & SCBCD anyway.
Best regards.
Eric LEMAITRE
CNAM IT Engineer, MS/CS (RHCE, RHCX, SCJA, SCJP, SCJD, SCWCD, SCBCD, SCEA, Net+)
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