dinesh pande

You have the choice of SCBCD,SCDJWS,SCEA exams from Sun and numerous other exams from other Vendors.

What will be good for you is something you will know better, based on your experience and where you want to go. (OR) if you are clueless (like me), just take one after the other (there is no particular order once you have cleared SCJP).

Thinking about the future is good. But if it were me, I will first pass what is at hand (in your case SCWCD), before worrying too much about other exams. Good luck with your SCWCD.

I can say with reasonable confidence that they ask EJB2.0 for Part I.
[ June 27, 2007: Message edited by: dinesh pande ]

I have seen several posts so far asking whether it is ok to use JEE5 Vs J2EE in their SCEA assignment.

I had a similar question when I did my SCEA (and at that time, I had no idea of EJB3 (which is esentially JEE5)). Now that I have learnt and certified in EJB3, I can try to clarify this once and for all.

My SCEA assignment is both J2EE and JEE5 complaint at the same time. Are you wondering how? Because I did not display any home or remote interfaces in my architecture. In other words, from the assignment point of you, what you usually show is SLSB,SFSB and Entities. The significant difference in JEE5 is the concept of Entities (and getting rid of EntityEJB). Entity is still a component and hence will not change anything in the diagram (probably you will get rid of the suffix "EJB" from the name).

I could be totally wrong, but what I am trying to conclude in the context of SCEA assignment is, it should not really matter whether you use J2EE or JEE5, you will end up in exactly the same architecture. (And remember, I am not talking about the actual implementation, which will be significantly different).

Note: If Sun releases a new version of SCEA for JEE5, then you may want to consider it, because it is new, and ofcourse Part I might be changed to take into EJB3 considerations and hopefully Part II requirements might change to take certain aspects of JEE5 into account in the architecture).
[ June 27, 2007: Message edited by: dinesh pande ]

Hi Shivani,

All the parts of the specification are equally important. However, if you dont want to read the entire spec, please read my original post as to how you can possibly avoid.

Senthil,

I dont know how to answer your question, as the term "coding ability" can be interpreted in various ways. I mentioned, in my earlier posts that the exam tests various EJB3 concepts including the syntax. Ofcourse, the syntax and the features will all be used during coding. But do you need to be an experienced programmer in EJB3 to pass the test? The answer is no.

In other words if you understand the syntax /features / do(s) /dont(s) of EJB you will pass, it does'nt mean you have necessarily worked on a project using those features.

Hi Senthil,

There's something you have missed in my post. 2 yrs prior EJB experience and prior SCBCD3 certification.

What SCBCD5 tests, is not real world experience, but just the syntax. And yes it took only 3 days to read the new syntax. Don't forget, I only scored 82%, but yahh, if I studied the specs for 3 weeks (OR) 3 months, then I would have got close to 100% (which was'nt my objective).

Hope that should clear your questions.

With some luck, I cleared SCBCD5 today.

Here are some details (by the way if you are planning to take SCBCD3, then dont read this post any further) :
Previous EJB3 experience: zero
Previous EJB2 experience: 2 yrs (also certified in SCBCD earlier version)
Total preparation time : 3 days (8 hrs each)

What do you need to read:
If you want to learn EJB3, it is better to start with some book in the market (well, for a beginner all of them should appear the same, if you are keen on a name, use EJB3 from Orielly)

If your objective is to just pass the exam (like most ppl do), On this occassion, I really doubt if one can pass this exam by just reading a book, even if they do, it will just be scraping through the pass mark (and probably this is the reason we wont have a SCBCD5 book from HeadFirst for a while). Alternatively,If you want to pass comfortably, then you must read the specs in addition to any book which you may have read.

Well reading the 3 specs is a guarenteed way to pass, but they are so huge, dont know where to start?? Alright, if you want above 90% marks, there is no way but to read the specs thorougly. But if you just want to pass comfortably, lets say above 70%, then you can buy the mock tests provided by Sun. I think these mock tests can be purchased in the same web page where there is info about SCBCD exam by Sun.

Oh, there are mock tests from Sun on SCBCD5, that's cool, tell me more about them: Well they cost around 40 pounds, in return you get 2 mock exams (i.e., 2 * 61 questions). The questions in these exams will be of the same standard as the actual exam. Well, as you can guess, you dont get the same questions in the exam. Now, coming back to the earlier question as to which bits to read from the spec, these mocks help you a lot. Each answer is explained and has references to various sections of the spec. So if you read and understand all the answers and read through the linked sections of the spec, I think you are sure to pass and this will save you the headache of reading all the 3 specs from start to finish.

I think I pretty much answerd all that I know, if there are relevant questions to which I know the answers and are not already answered, I will try to answer the posts.

Good luck..

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SCJP(old),SCJP(new),SCBCD(old),SCBCD(new),SCWCD,SCDJWS,SCJD,SCEA & a few other non-sun exams

The marks are for the diagrams and not for the text. Since all of them are UML, you are conveying your thoughts thourgh a diagram and hence no need for too much text.

My total assumptions/design choices text was 1 and half page. Well what do you write in it? it is ofcourse the assumptions you made or any special thing that you have done for a particular reason which is not very obvious in the diagram !!

yes i did.

Congratualtions, very well done !!!

Congratulations!!!

There wont be a grade for Part III.

Part II and III are combined as one grade which is what is shown in your report.

You will get a certificate soon.

Detailed Scores
-----
Class Diagram (44 maximum) .......................... 39
Component Diagram (44 maximum) ...................... 40 Sequence/Colloboration Diagrams (12 maximum) ........ 12

I did'nt bother to invest too much time into this, I probably gave 70% of what I could really do with it. My total design choices text (excluding diagrams) was just 2 pages (A4). I finished Part III in 35 minutes.

The key is to keep it simple.

Unless you are aiming for 100%, take it easy and you are sure to pass with basic design knowledge.

Good luck to all.

Congrats!! well done !!!

I have'nt had a chance to look at JavaEE5 yet, and yes I agree that it may call some patterns. However, it may not kill the two you stated.

TransferObject(Value Object): This pattern does'nt have a lot to do with entity beans. So even if you just had entities a Transfer object could strip down the data from the entity or at times combine the data from more than one entity and give the relevant data to the client. I dont see this pattern getting killed.

Service Locator: Once again this is used to locate services (EJB(s) or not). And more over this pattern gives clear seperation of concerns from the client who needs a particular service and the lookup involved in getting that service. So once again, I dont see this pattern getting killed.

Others who are familar with JavaEE5 may have a different opinion though.

Firstly, you should have more than one usecase in your assignment. I have'nt heard from anyone so far who got only one use case. What do the deliverables section say? Is it not 1 component diagram, 1 class diagram and one sequence diagram for each use case?