Vikram Ranade

Thanks Bidyut, John and John for your reply.
Currently I am reading the two standard EJB books. As I understand, EJB is the biggest component of J2EE.
Thanks,
Vikram

I have been closely watching this forum since my programmer certification. I don't know the reason why so many people are interested in Developer certification and so few in the Architect, particularly now that SUN has completely changed the Architect exam.
Even SUN is trying to get more people to attend to its costly architect training program. They are holding it so close to their chest that they don't even want to recommend a few good books.
I understand that architect certification is broader in scope, but there has to be some bounds as to which books one should refer.
Just expressing my thoughts aloud...
I really want to thank Erich for his participation in this forum. It has been a great help.

Vikram

Thank you very much Javaranch! Thanks to all the moderators and grazing cows!
That was a real long wait, but finally I got the Beta Exam result yesterday. Passed with 86%. Looking at the posts since the new exam came into effect, I was wondering as to why people think its too easy. What I can tell you from my score is that they have removed many difficult questions from the Beta exam.
The worst I performed was on Threads (and I was consistent on that!), I got only 57% correct, but who cares, I just want to go for EJB! (Just kidding!!).
For the future candidates, I would say that RHE is still the best book (Yes even for the new exam). Apart from that I only looked at the APIs and Sun's Tutorials.
I took almost all the tests on javaranch/maha. Thanks to Maha for such an excellent work. Special thanks to Ajith for answering my questions and the hundreds of others. Thanks to the Greenhorns who asked questions that didn't even occur to me.
Vikram

Its the requirement for Certification and not for taking SCJP Test!!
Vikram

Don't get confused. 310-027 is the Developer certification, which might be your next step. For present, concentrate only on your Programmer certification. This exam is not changing in its objectives. The only change is to the question bank.
If you search this site, you will find enough discussion on the topic.
All the best,
Vikram

Quote From Sun's site:
"SUN CERTIFIED PROGRAMMER FOR THE JAVA 2 PLATFORM REVISION
Sun is doing its annual revision of the Sun Certified Programmer examination. Since this is a minor revision, the certification will remain the Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 Platform and cover the same testing objectives. The new certification questions will be available in early October. In the meantime, you can continue to take the existing exam. "

They are only changing the question bank, so don't worry as long as you are not relying on that!!!
Vikram

try 2test.com

Your constructor for class abs is abs(int i). When this code is compiled, it tries to call the no-arg constructor in the super class and you don't have one.
In general If your constructor does not make call to an overloaded constructor by this(..) or to a superclass constructor by super(..), then a call is ALWAYS made to the superclass's no-arg constructor.
Vikram

Thanks Marcela for you effort. This will definitely help us.
Vikram

I almost agree with your beta experience, except for I was left with only 2 minutes when I completed the test and did not get any opportunity to take another look at the answers.
It would be definitely interesting to know how they are going to evaluate.
I was one of the early ones to take the beta and I described my experience in response to an earlier question. Great to know that someone else also found it difficult compared to the mocks.
Vikram

In the first If statement, "String" constructs a new String object. The toString() method returns the SAME OBJECT if the type of object is String. The Second appearance of "String" does not construct a new String object, it just refers to the previously created String object.
Hence "String".toString() == "String" is true.
In the second if statement, the " String ".trim() causes new String object to be constructed with " String " as its value. The trim() method returns a NEW String object. The second appearance of "String" just refers to the String object created in the first if statement. Hence the two variables do not refer to the same object.
Hence " String ".trim() == "String" is false.
Vikram

I have seen this question in the test. The Question is about IO streams, though it needs to read data from a socket. However, in accordance to the guidelines of this forum, I would not present the question.
I thought I would just share this info. since I found the question just a bit outside the IO scope.
Vikram

public class Grn{
public static void main(String arguments[]){
Grn g = new Grn();
g.amethod(arguments);
}
public void amethod(String[] arguments){
System.out.println(arguments);
System.out.println(arguments[1]);
}
}

I took the exam on 14th.
162 Questions/210 minutes.
Found it tough to complete, No time was left for re-visiting questions.
RHE is not enough, must go through the API docs.
Lot of questions on Threads - none too easy - Looks like Most of the questions were from experience.
Lot of twisted questions.
Questions on util and Layout managers were comparatively easy.
Found couple of questions with mistake.
The one thing I realized is that Beta is for experts - experienced people only, who can answer the questions very quickly.
Vikram

I took the exam yesterday.
162 Questions/210 minutes.
Found it tough to complete, No time was left for re-visiting questions.
RHE is not enough, must go through the API docs.
Lot of questions on Threads - none too easy - Looks like Most of the questions were from experience.
Lot of twisted questions.
Questions on util and Layout managers were comparatively easy.
Found couple of questions with mistake.
The one thing I realized is that Beta is for experts - experienced people only, who can answer the questions very quickly.
Vikram