Murach's Java Programming: Certification for Java 8?

[German Gonzalez-Morris]

Hello,

It's nice to see that is already in 5th edition ! (kudos)

Can I use this book to take an upgrade certification exam for Java 8 ?

Regards,

Germán

[Campbell Ritchie]

Certification exams seem to ask rather different questions from everyday programming, including whether a particular piece of code will compile, suffer an Exception at runtime, etc.

[Joel Murach]

Hi German,

There are several books on the market that are designed for preparing you for a Java 8 certification exam. I think you'd probably be better off getting one of those because our book is designed just to teach the most useful and practical Java skills, and I agree with Campbell's point that learning the everyday programming skills doesn't necessarily prepare you for the certification exams.

Thanks!

[German Gonzalez-Morris]

Yes, good point. Anyway still I need to manage Lambdas :-)

[Joel Murach]

Me too! They're a brain-bender when you first get started with them!

[Campbell Ritchie]

I think one of the easier ways to understand a λ is to start from an anonymous class and cut it back until you have a λ left. You will find an example here.

[Joel Murach]

That's a nice explanation of how a lambda expression works when the anonymous expression doesn't have any parameters. Thanks for sharing.

We use a similar approach of progressing from an anonymous class to a lambda expression. Of course, the syntax for working with lambda expressions is a little different if the method has one or more parameters. Still, the same concept applies.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Joel Murach wrote:There are several books on the market that are designed for preparing you for a Java 8 certification exam. I think you'd probably be better off getting one of those because our book is designed just to teach the most useful and practical Java skills, and I agree with Campbell's point that learning the everyday programming skills doesn't necessarily prepare you for the certification exams.

Agreed. As the author of one of those cert books, we recommend readers pick up an intro to Java book first. So I'd recommend reading my book after you read Joel's!

[Joel Murach]

As a way of saying thanks for all the great questions and discussion, I'd like to offer anyone in the JavaRanch community who is interested a special discount of 40% off my book. To get that discount, just go here:

https://www.murach.com/shop/murach-s-java-programming-5th-edition-detail

Add the book to your cart, and use this promotion code when you check out:

CodeRanchJoel

This code should work until 8/22.

Thanks again, I have really enjoyed my week here at the Ranch.

[Joel Murach]

P.S. - For the certification exam, I'd definitely recommend Jeanne's book!