Try Catch and Finally!

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Yes! finally I can say that the job is done! Thanks to you all ranchers! I specially want to mention the K & B book, Authors Kathy Sierra Bert Bates , Stephan Van Hulst, Matthew Brown, Achilleas Achix, Andreas Svenkson, Rahul Sudip Bose, Denis Deems, Lakshmi Yerramaredy...And that guy that ALWAYS talks with codes Tommy Delson!.
I am NOT satisfied with my score (81%) I dont know what went wrong with my analysis of some questions, I MUST admit that it was quite difficult, I got some 'wicked' semantic nuances questions in OO, maybe I needed that 30minutes that they took off to revise the questions I marked. However I knew right there 'on-the-fly' that I passed the exams because I answered at least 47 of the 60 questions with GUARANTEE.
I dont want to let that bother me too much, the MOST important thing is to be certified, I will prove what I know on-the-job.
The funny thing about the exams is that they left NO stone unturned with enums and inner classes, (I got between 10 and 12 questions directly and indirectly related to both topics) with enums they went as far as testing my knowledge on 'Constant-Specific-Class-Body' , with inner classes they went as far as 'Argument-Defined-Anonymous-Inner-Classes' ...In fact the first question I got was this last one...Because I was not used to that kind of coding, it took me nearly five minutes to analyse.
Another funny thing I noticed was that anytime a question had "strange syntax", the first option was compilation fails! to see if you will fall-in-the-trap. No questions on serialization, wait, and notify.
Thanks everyone! I am indeed very happy and I will keep participating here to help others get-the-job-done!

Regards

Ikpefua

[Stephan van Hulst]

Congratulation! Did you get a break down on where your weak points are?

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Stephan van Hulst wrote:Congratulation! Did you get a break down on where your weak points are?

The result slip only shows that you passed. However the only problem I see here is experience, I am ONLY 20months in this game WITHOUT prior knowledge of programming languages, I got some "technical-theory" questions in OO and one in development that you dont find in NO book nor forum nor mock exams...That requires experience...I am confident of my progress...its just the beggining.

[Muneeswaran Balasubramanian]

Hi Ikpefua,

Congrats....

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Hey Munees!...Thank you very much!.

[joy b chakravarty]

Good going Ikpefua, Congratulations

[Andreas Svenkson]

Huge congratiulations to you Jacob, I know the feeling of relief it brings to see the text "PASS" printed on the screen, a job well done!

Just out of curiousity what are your plans now? Aim for another certificate, find a job in java (maybe you already have one?), or what?

I will be ordering my copy of "Effective Java" today I think, I really want to take my coding to the "next level" in terms of producing robust and high quality code (as opposed to code that's "just" legal), and I think this book will help alot with that.

// Andreas

[Shanky Sohar]

Congratulations

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

Congratulations !

[Joe San]

Congrats!

[Stephan van Hulst]

Hmm, maybe next year I'll go and take the test. These stories definitely make me feel interested in getting the certification.

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

@Joy @Andreas @Shanky @Seetharaman @Joe....Thanks to you all.

@Andreas...good questions, at the moment I am unemployed, I had to take time off to get certified I knew it would be very difficult to "migrate" from an entirely different profession to computer programming, working and studying at the same time. A fellow rancher was able to do both successfully because she works in the bank as a java programmer so that makes it "easier".

I was adviced to go ahead with web component development, many people seem to agree with that, what do you think? one thing is for sure, I will acquire at least two more Oracle-java certificates.

Andreas wrote:I really want to take my coding to the "next level" in terms of producing robust and high quality code (as opposed to code that's "just" legal)

You are correct, I saw some weird coding in the exams that will obviously provoke one getting fired on-the-job...
I even got used to coding like that simply because it was necessary to pass the exams, like you said we need to learn and get used to high quality robust coding for purposes on-the-job (as opposed to whats...well.... "just" legal). People have told me that employers "frown" at uneccessary nested codings, like nested loops, nested try-catch etc, it makes programs difficult to analyse.
I have a book called "the complete reference" by Herbert Schildt that I bought along side the K&B book, funny enough the book is still as I bought it inside the package , I will open it up from tomorrow to see how it goes.

Please lets keep in touch and keep analysing the way forward as time goes on.

Regards

Ikpefua

[Hassan Khan]

Hi Jacob,

Which mock sites or softwares did you use while preparing for the exam? How tough the real exam was as compared to ExamLab?

Regards,
Hassan

[Paul Anilprem]

Congratulations!!!

[Rahul Sudip Bose]

I feel very happy for you ! good score So, what after this ?

[Rahul Sudip Bose]

Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan wrote:
I have a book called "the complete reference" by Herbert Schildt that I bought along side the K&B book, funny enough the book is still as I bought it inside the package , I will open it up from tomorrow to see how it goes.

Lots of guys/gals swear by herbert. But that scares me. The K&B book explains stuff like threads in much simpler language and lesser pages that herbert. Now that you are an OCJP 6, you can consider "thinking in java" (pdf is FREE - my 2 cents). I used herbert as a paper weight before i sold it off.
Good luck for the future.

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Hassan Khan wrote:Hi Jacob,
Which mock sites or softwares did you use while preparing for the exam? How tough the real exam was as compared to ExamLab?
Regards,
Hassan

Hello Hassan, I used the K & B book and the mock exam that is contained in the cd that comes with the book, I also bought the official Oracle mock exams that has a "striking" resemblance to the real exams, ExamLab is generally tougher than the real exams it is a very good option too because it will prepare you for some of the exams toughest questions. Summary:
-K & B book
-Oracle mock exams
-ExamLab
-You may also practice with others like ethunware certpal etc.
-Participating Actively in this forum, funny enough the more you help others resolve their problems the better prepared you get.

Regards

Ikpefua

[Boris Mechkov]

Congratulations Ikpefua!

Hopefully i get to share your excitement very soon!

[dennis deems]

Hearty congratulations!! I have observed your progress with interest. You have helped many on this site including me. I am glad to see that you intend to stick around.

May I recommend "Effective Java" by Joshua Bloch - you may see his name once or twice when you go digging in the Java source code ;)

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Boris Mechkov wrote:Congratulations Ikpefua!
Hopefully i get to share your excitement very soon!

Thank you Boris, you sure will share the excitement, I will be pleased to assist in clarifying your doubts.

[Boris Mechkov]

Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan wrote:

Boris Mechkov wrote:Congratulations Ikpefua!
Hopefully i get to share your excitement very soon!

Thank you Boris, you sure will share the excitement, I will be pleased to assist in clarifying your doubts.

I am actually feeling very jittery...I am in the final stages of my preparations...Getting nervous by the day...
Congrats one more time!

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Dennis Deems wrote:Hearty congratulations!! I have observed your progress with interest. You have helped many on this site including me.I am glad to see that you intend to stick around.

May I recommend "Effective Java" by Joshua Bloch - you may see his name once or twice when you go digging in the Java source code ;)

Thanks Dennis I also observed your well driven "gentle" approach in this forum, you are a success guarantee, if you noticed, I mentioned your name at the beggining of this thread... count on me bro!.

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Guys...I want to CONFIRM that there were NO DRAG AND DROP questions, I assume that its the fundamental reason why the exam duration was reduced to 150minutes. Personally I think its good news because drag and drop was just a nightmare!.

[Boris Mechkov]

Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan wrote:Guys...I want to CONFIRM that there were NO DRAG AND DROP questions, I assume that its the fundamental reason why the exam duration was reduced to 150minutes. Personally I think its good news because drag and drop was just a nightmare!.

Agreed fully!

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Boris Mechkov wrote:
I am actually feeling very jittery...I am in the final stages of my preparations...Getting nervous by the day...
Congrats one more time!

Dont be jittery,
make sure you are VERY good in OO, try and dominate 100% of OO, that is where MOST of the exam questions ALWAYS come from. Make sure you know ALL the flavours of enums and ALL the flavours of inner classes and the different syntaxes and ways they can be instantiated, you MUST be used to the rules and regulations of constructors, methods overloads and overrides and how checked and unchecked exceptions affect them, API contents, Generic collections and threads are the next where lots of questions come from, in development you are GUARANTEED to be tested on locating classes declared in packages and locating them when those are put in Jar files.

You need to get that balance between maximum calmness and maximum concentration to avoid falling into exam trip traps. For example I got a question that was testing my knowledge on the call to super() or this() being the first statement in a constructor and I almost forgot because it was the middle of the exams and my concentration was maximum.

Dont worry bro you will get-the-job-done!

[Boris Mechkov]

Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan wrote:

Boris Mechkov wrote:
I am actually feeling very jittery...I am in the final stages of my preparations...Getting nervous by the day...
Congrats one more time!

Dont be jittery,
make sure you are VERY good in OO, try and dominate 100% of OO, that is where MOST of the exam questions ALWAYS come from. Make sure you know ALL the flavours of enums and ALL the flavours of inner classes and the different syntaxes and ways they can be instantiated, you MUST be used to the rules and regulations of constructors, methods overloads and overrides and how checked and unchecked exceptions affect them, API contents, Generic collections and threads are the next where lots of questions come from, in development you are GUARANTEED to be tested on locating classes declared in packages and locating them when those are put in Jar files.

You need to get that balance between maximum calm and maximum concentration to avoid falling into exam trip traps. For example I got a question that was testing my knowledge on the call to super() or this() being the first statement in a constructor and I almost forgot because it was the middle of the exams and my concentration was maximum.

Dont worry bro you will get-the-job-done!

I appreciate it Jacob. The only areas i am worried about are Generics and Threads to a certain extend. We will see though, i have put (just like everybody else on here i presume) a lot of effort in preparing for this exam.

[Tommy Delson]

Well done, finally you did it, congratulation!



What's next? I recommended get a job and gain some real world experiences, the Cert won't make anyone better or help much or become better programmer or engineer as many have stated after having the Cert.

What really important is the employers are looking for the experienced and how Java applies or help solving their problems, the Cert is a supplement or a plus for the experienced.

Get a JOB in your field and a desired path whether Web, GUI, Mobile etc. go for it. I recommended go with the Web & Mobile since they both complement each other.

The future is NOW, get your self hands on experience with Spring Framework, Hibernate, Wicket etc. These technologies will replace or rewrite all JEE apps. JSP, Servlets, Struts, JSF are just typical, but it's good to learn and know them in general.

Good luck on your next move...

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

@Tommy...Thank you very much...I am going ahead straight up with getting a job because work experience is the real thing certification is ONLY a proof that "at least" you are NOT a "dummy" in java AND in general. I agree with you about web and mobile and the technologies you mentioned.

Once again thanks a lot for your advice, please lets keep in touch.

[Bert Bates]

Congrats Ikpefua,

You've been a nice, positive force on SCJP forum, I hope you'll stick around!

Bert

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Bert Bates wrote:Congrats Ikpefua,
You've been a nice, positive force on SCJP forum, I hope you'll stick around!
Bert

Thank you very much Bert!... I already gave my word to fellow ranchers, there's no doubt about sticking arround.
Javaranch is my second home!.

Regards

Ikpefua

[Andreas Svenkson]

Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan wrote:
@Andreas...good questions, at the moment I am unemployed, I had to take time off to get certified I knew it would be very difficult to "migrate" from an entirely different profession to computer programming, working and studying at the same time. A fellow rancher was able to do both successfully because she works in the bank as a java programmer so that makes it "easier".

I was adviced to go ahead with web component development, many people seem to agree with that, what do you think? one thing is for sure, I will acquire at least two more Oracle-java certificates.

Funny coincidence, I too am migrating - being a construction engineer in "the bottom" and having worked with that about a year, I then started looking into programming again (I had studied 1year of computer science before becoming an engineer) and just felt like I had "come home"

As for what to focus on, I can't say one thing or the other, I haven't looked into that myself yet. I am happy to tell you though, that I actually got my first job as a java developer this week and will be starting work in mid august. I have no professional experience with it but the employer didn't see any problem with that and I will be starting "in-house" to learn the ropes. I'm seriously excited about this, just hope it will work out well once I start working.

Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan wrote:

Andreas wrote:I really want to take my coding to the "next level" in terms of producing robust and high quality code (as opposed to code that's "just" legal)

You are correct, I saw some weird coding in the exams that will obviously provoke one getting fired on-the-job...
I even got used to coding like that simply because it was necessary to pass the exams, like you said we need to learn and get used to high quality robust coding for purposes on-the-job (as opposed to whats...well.... "just" legal). People have told me that employers "frown" at uneccessary nested codings, like nested loops, nested try-catch etc, it makes programs difficult to analyse.
I have a book called "the complete reference" by Herbert Schildt that I bought along side the K&B book, funny enough the book is still as I bought it inside the package , I will open it up from tomorrow to see how it goes.

Please lets keep in touch and keep analysing the way forward as time goes on.

Regards

Ikpefua

I ordered "Effective Java" today, I think that book will be pretty invaluable in the long run, you can check out the feedback on it here if you like: https://coderanch.com/t/93257/Book-Reviews/Effective-Java-Programming-Language-Guide#485685
I'll definitely still be around on these forums too, always interesting to see what kind of quirks people like ourselves come up with/run into as they study for the certification.

Cheers,
Andreas.

[Abhay Agarwal]

congrats

[Hareendra Reddy]

Congratz jackzia...