Hi Jana, welcome to the ranch.
To your questions...
Can a person who knows next to nothing about java benefit from this cattle drive? Yes. Several of us started out with little or no knowledge of Java. Most of all you'll get practice actually writing code, with an emphasis on writing readable code. Not every single aspect of Java is covered in the Cattle Drive, but you'll get a good look at the things that are covered.
However what about people who know nothing about java and want to take the Sun's test maybe by Nov? Or is that too soon? Preparing for the certification exams of Sun is not the primary goal of the Cattle Drive, though many have said that it helped along the way. If you need to pass the cert exam, you'd have to prepare for it in other ways. You could do the Cattle Drive as something on the side, it wouldn't hurt, it's more of a time question.
Is Nov too soon? How long it takes to prepare for the certs varies from person to person (their background, their time to commit to studying, etc. etc.).
The folks who've done both will have some good feedback for you, they should be showing up any minute now...
Cheers,
Pauline
