OCM Java EE 6 Enterprise Architect Exam Guide (Exams 1Z0-807, 1Z0-865 & 1Z0-866)

[Book Review Team]

Author/s    : Paul Allen, Joseph Bambara
Publisher   : McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Category   : Java Certification
Review by : Jeanne Boyarsky
Rating        : 7 horseshoes

I want to give the "OCM Java EE 6 Enterprise Architect Exam Guide" book 9 horseshoes and the CD with the practice exam 2 horseshoes. I'll compromise and give the whole entity 7 horseshoes. What's wrong with the CD you ask? It requires Windows. When I installed it on my Windows virtual machine, I got an error that it could not register the font Lucidia-Sans Regular TrueType. Verify that you have sufficient permissions to install fonts and that the system supports this font." The software worked fine without the font, so I could have done with the error. Also, the hint button in practice mode (titled "assistance") looked like a title and it took me a few minutes of searching to find it.

Ok, now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's go on to the actual book. All three parts of the exam are covered. I think part 1 is covered the best followed part 3. This makes sense as part 2 of the exam is more "doing."

As with other McGraw-Hill books, there are some hands on exercises and each chapter ends with a two minute drill along with practice questions. Some of the questions were true/false and not representative of the exam format. They don't tell you how many answers are correct which makes them harder.

I particularly liked the tables. Both to review topics and to map scenarios to patterns and technologies. This is a skill you need for the exam so it was great to have it highlighted.
I like that it wasn't an artificial world. The book mentions Eclipse, Spring, Guice and WebSphere. I also liked the phrase "note that these answers are not necessarily what you might encounter in your workplace." I was surprised to see so much JavaScript code in the book, but it was apparent that isn't on the exam.

When I look the (SCEA 5) exam, I used the Cade/Sheil book. Allen/Bambara's book covers version 6, has much more detail on what you need to know and has way more practice questions. It's actually possible to use it to study instead of just as a brief review.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.

More info at Amazon.com

[Pankaj Shet]

HI Team,

Is this book, enough for that exam?

Regards,
-Pankaj.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

For part 1, definitely. For part 2, I think you'd need other resources depending on your level of experience.

[Book Review Team]

Review by : Greg Charles
Rating        : 6 horseshoes

This book does a decent job describing the architect exam and the principles needed to pass the first part of the exam, with some insights into the second and third. The introduction promises to take a conceptual approach, which isn't completely realized in the following chapters, but still means the book will useful to working software engineers interested in architecture, even if they don't take the certification exam.

Anyone who is seriously considering taking this exam will already have exposure to many of the topics covered here: UML, EJBs, messaging, design patterns, security, etc. Each chapter could be a book on its own, so there's really not room to go into much detail. The book is laid out to parallel the exam objectives, which makes it a good way to discover your weak areas, but also leads to quite a bit of overlap, and in some cases word-for-word duplication from previous sections. "Exam Watch" sidebars do a good job of relating the text to what you might encounter on the exam, but, oddly, they are sparsely used. There should be more a lot more of these. Diagrams and illustrations are also too sparsely used and don't always synch perfectly with the accompanying text. They feel like something of an afterthought. The text style varies, and while it is often engaging, there are parts that just seem to be laundry lists of features for the technology under discussion.

Overall, this book fulfills its promise of presenting the concepts needed to succeed on the architect exam. Readers will find themselves skimming many of the sections, since they will already be familiar with the material, but it's a good review, and I found several places where my own knowledge was incomplete, especially on technologies recently introduced.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.

More info at Amazon.com

[Silviu Burcea]

If I want to learn from scratch and consolidate my existing knowledge, can I use this book to prepare for part 1? I have 3 years of Java, but most of the time I have used frameworks like Spring(MVC), so I don't feel very comfortable with EE yet. Also, is it a good idea to learn from Java EE7 tutorial from Oracle, or should I follow the EE6 version?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

You should use the Java EE tutorial that goes with the version of the exam you wish to take. Keep in mind the exam is higher level knowledge than the tutorials and the book targets this higher level knowledge.