Taking OCP SE 11 head on

[Brendan Rosa]

Here's my abridged monologue...

I started tinkering with Front Page 2000 about 15 years back copying miniclip flash games to my website. I thought I was a cool kid that had their own website with some ripped flash games. I guess CORS headers weren't a thing back then, huh? I never really did much beyond this until about middle school. My brother then was in high school and he joined some sort of program related to programming where he attended comp sci classes on the weekend at UCF, and the professor was kind enough to have me tag along. I remember writing a quadratic formula solver in C, in Bloodshed's Dev-C++ on my Windows XP laptop.

Fast forward into freshman year of high school, I had web design as one of my elective classes and it was a cake walk - so much so that I found myself around the class helping other students as I was completing assignments before the lectures were even finished. Those days felt great, when barely anyone had any interest in, or understood programming and I felt far above average. A little later, I was first introduced to Java when I began working on RuneScape private servers where you downloaded some source code that someone else wrote, rebranded it as your own game, changed some game configuration and called yourself a "coder" for being able to find pieces of code that seemed like you understood, copying/pasting if blocks all over - yeah, everything was in one single class, I know. On and off, I would work on various one off tasks whether it was modify something in PHP, doing some web design, or other projects related to RuneScape with friends.

Fast forward, I'm 26 years old and the same friend who then knew less than me, is now a very capable software engineer and I ask him questions all the time about how things work under the hood and have always considered myself a deep thinker and I'm more interested in the low level understanding of things. I never thought college education was worth it for the ever-changing field of computer science and almost all job listings I see stating "in lieu of a degree..." confirmed this notion. I have completed two Java courses on Code With Mosh which further solidified my understanding on the some of the core philosophies of Java. In the past few years, I have mostly developed CRUD web interfaces to visualize and manage back end systems. I really started to get my feet wet with more dev ops tasks, Kubernetes, Docker, CI, unit testing, etc.

I bought the book Head First Java and after seeing the writing style, it wasn't my cup of tea so I bought the OCP Java SE 11 Developer Study Guide. My goal is to finish the book in 6 months time, to understand Java through and through and get a safety net job while I continue to work on projects for the business I cofounded with my aforementioned friend.

I wrote this introduction to both hold myself accountable and also wanted to get a feel for what the community is like. Thanks for reading and feel free to ask any questions!

[Jj Roberts]

Hi! Welcome to the Ranch!

A word of warning, the OCP exams aren't something you can cram study for. You will need to be fluent and confident in all areas of Java, including a lot of theory. Oracle recommends at least 18 months experience before taking the tests. Let us know how it goes!

[Brendan Rosa]

Jj Roberts wrote:Hi! Welcome to the Ranch!

A word of warning, the OCP exams aren't something you can cram study for. You will need to be fluent and confident in all areas of Java, including a lot of theory. Oracle recommends at least 18 months experience before taking the tests. Let us know how it goes!

Hello Jj, I did forget to mention that I have worked with Java a considerable amount and have some certifications that may be found on my website at brenr.dev. I updated my original post.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Brendan Rosa wrote:. . . barely anyone had any interest in, or understood programming . . .

You must have moved in the wrong circles. Many of us have had an interest in programming for a lot longer than 15 years.

Of course, understanding of programming is still developing and we have different concept from 15 years ago. Remember that eighty years ago, there was no such thing as a computer program. Even aeronautical engineering has a much longer history, long before George Cayley (who lived about 45 miles from here) gave up his glider experiments because of the lack of a an engine powerful enough to drive an aircraft.

I bought the book Head First Java and after seeing the writing style, it wasn't my cup of tea so I bought the OCP Java SE 11 Developer Study Guide.

You either love HFJ (I do) or you hate it. I am not convinced that a cert exam guide is a good introduction to a language. If you have some programming experience already, consider Cay Horstmann's big book (Core Java: start with volume I only). Older editions were co‑authored with Gary Cornell.

My goal is to finish the book in 6 months time, to understand Java through and through and get a safety net job while I continue to work on projects for the business I cofounded with my aforementioned friend.

I wrote this introduction to both hold myself accountable and also wanted to get a feel for what the community is like. Thanks for reading and feel free to ask any questions!

I think it is over‑optimistic to expect to understand the language in six months (even if they don't change something in those six months). It takes much longer to achieve expertise; Peter Norvig has a different timetable It takes time to gain the experience. And take JJ's warning: the Oracle exams are much more difficult than they look.

And, again . . . welcome to the Ranch