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Oracle certifications

 
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I'm about to do the JPA exam and I'm aiming the architect one, thus, I would like to move to something like core Spring certifications. Therefore, I would like to know about what you guys/girls think about the Oracle certifications and the Spring ones.

I've seen some people discouraging others to take these exams and as I did some of them, I see that nowadays just some of them are really useful in practice. Obviously the inherent knowledge given by studying Servlets, the concepts embedded in EJB and so on are useful and spread among a lot of newer frameworks and tools.

But the doubt remains while I should do it or should move to something else.

Thanks in advance! :]
 
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Jayr Motta wrote:I'm about to do the JPA exam and I'm aiming the architect one, thus, I would like to move to something like core Spring certifications. Therefore, I would like to know about what you guys/girls think about the Oracle certifications and the Spring ones.

I've seen some people discouraging others to take these exams and as I did some of them, I see that nowadays just some of them are really useful in practice. Obviously the inherent knowledge given by studying Servlets, the concepts embedded in EJB and so on are useful and spread among a lot of newer frameworks and tools.

But the doubt remains while I should do it or should move to something else.

Thanks in advance! :]




Since this topic is in the Job Discussion forum, this response is in regards to jobs. But to preface, this is opinion only....

In my opinion, certification are more valuable when they are achieved while working on a project that requires those skills. Otherwise, it is just head down study on a subject that will not be used. Remember a certification shows that you have past a test, which means that likely that you have the skills. During the job interviews, you will be tested on those skills. IMO, having lots of certifications, and failing to defend the skills during an interview is just like not having the certification.

So, if you are working on projects that needs those skills, then by all means, get the advance certification. If not, in my opinion, you should continue studying / working on skill for the certs that you already achieved. In other words, you have worked so hard on the certifications, isn't it a good idea to use the skills?

Henry
 
Jayr Motta
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Henry,

I agree with your point of view, and at the moment that I decided to take each of these exams I was working with the technology of the exam. But this wasn't the only reason I did that, I've realized that the knowledge that I've obtained in each of the certifications made me a better Java programmer, because I could progressively see the whole picture of the Java stack.

Another great thing of doing that was that every technology I got to work after I did the certifications had something in common or have concepts that I could benefit from the knowledge obtained while studying for the certifications. In other words, even the technology not being the same, many frameworks benefits themselves of concepts created in Java official specifications or have concepts that follow the same thought line. An example of it is the transaction model of Spring, its based on the EJB one. Another example is with Servlets, Filters, Listeners, etc, I got to work with many frameworks like Struts, VRaptor, Spring, JSF, Velocity, DWR, etc and each of them are somehow based on the Java-web technologies.

That's a good thing, I guess. Now I'm studying for the JPA exam and that requires me to study transactions in a deepest level of detail again and also the many aspects related to persistence in a Java application with persistence enabled. Even the certifications doesn't meaning anything if the knowledge is not properly obtained (I've seen many dumping questions instead of really learning the subject), it is a good path for Java programmers that may decided to start from scratch to learn a lot of things that may be part of their reality for the next years. Obviously this will require more study on each subject the programmer decides to learn about, but the basis will be there supporting his studies.

About what you said related to keep studying the subjects that I have obtained certifications in order to become a specialist or something like that in that area, sounds good but has it's considerations. I'll much probably not work with EJB so soon, but I do want to study some concepts and areas of it again because I feel that these are present during my days as a Java programmer. The same is true about Java the language itself, the Java web technologies and also with JPA. I think that everything I have learned so far is useful and what is not, is getting down in my brain index, now I'm capable to see what I should study instead of just doing certifications without a clear goal, but once I got so far I'm going to do the architect one in order to help me understand the skills needed by a Java architect.

After that I plan to keep studying what I've learned, others frameworks and technologies, maybe get deep in the JVM world and other languages.
 
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I don't think it is a good idea to pursue the Spring cert for the sake of the cert. If you are taking the course anyway, by all means take the cert that it comes with. At the moment, I feel the same way about the architect one (because there is now a required class.)

For the JPA cert, it is a good thing if it will motivate you to learn the technology better.

When you say "do something else", what else are you considering?
 
Jayr Motta
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Jeanne,

By "move to something else" I meant that maybe I should forget the certifications and start to pursue other kind/set of skills. I'm pretty sure that I'm extremely far to be the best programmer I can be and also to know what I can know, thus, I still want to pursue knowledge in certain areas that I don't have or that I'm not that mature yet (in the case of Spring or architect skills I think that since I'm going to study, I could try the certifications for them in order to make my résumé richer).

I want to become a great Software Engineer, the best I can be, this Java certification path was for me kind of a door. Now that I can see the door clearly, I'm not sure that passing through it is the best choice to achieve my goal, so what I'm asking is for advises about the path I could consider taking in order to achieve that.

Study the things I've enlisted without doing the certifications? How could I practice that if my actual job doesn't require much of that right now? Should I get low on the JVM after getting the knowledge I'm aiming for? Or should I move to other area than Software Development (such as Infrastructure and SO's)?

I know that any answer to these questions will have some of a personal taste and it's different for each person, but still, I want to know what you guys think about it, it is important for me to follow the steps of the great ones and thus taking my owns.

Thanks.
 
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