As more and more Java programmers enter the job market, certification can offer a competitive edge in knowledge, confidence, and marketability. Sun offers programmer certification for JDK^TM 1.1, and the Java^TM 2 platform. Developer certification is offered for and JDK 1.1 and the Java^TM 2 platform. Java architect certification is offered only for the Java 2 platform. In this article three Java coders: a programmer, a developer, and an architect talk about certification.

The three Java certification programs are rapidly becoming the industry standard.

• Java Programmer certification requires the successful completion of a multiple choice and short answer exam covering the specifics of the Java language. It has no prerequisites.

• Java Developer certification requires Programmer certification at any JDK release as a prerequisite. The Developer test consists of two parts.
  • A programming assignment is first downloaded from the Sun Educational Services Certification Database. There is no specific time limit for the completion of the programming assignment.
  • An essay test is then given requiring short answers regarding design decisions made in connection with the programming assignment.

• Java Architect certification involves a multiple choice and short answer exam, and has no prerequisites. It is designed to test a broad scope of program design skills and object-oriented methodologies.

Sun Educational Services offer a variety of preparatory courses for all three levels of Java certification. There are also numerous self-study books available on the commercial market.

The Programmer's Tale

Christopher McIntosh is a Java consultant for the Maxim Group. He has been coding professionally for 10 years, beginning with C and C++. Since 1996 he has been focused exclusively on Java technology. "I was one of the first to download the 1.0 alpha," McIntosh claims. He admits to having been branded a local "Java Evangelist."

Currently he is working at MCI on a large scale internal Java development project supporting their sales force. He was hired primarily as a mentor, but does coding as well as architecture consulting and research into performance issues.

Why Seek Certification?

On one of his first Java programming assignments, McIntosh became responsible for conducting screening interviews for programming applicants. He immediately saw the value of a small in-house exam that had been developed by one of the other programmers. "At the time, there were people in the job market who had downloaded the JDK and experimented with it a little, then were presenting themselves as Java programmers. As an interviewer, I needed a quick way to determine a basic level of knowledge," he says.

When that assignment ended, McIntosh decided to seek JDK 1.1 Programmer Certification from Sun. He had two motivations: first, he wanted to distinguish himself in the marketplace, and second, he wanted to evaluate Java certification from an interviewer's point-of-view.

Preparation

McIntosh did not pursue the Sun Education course work for the Programmer's exam. Instead he purchased the Java Certification Exam Guide for Programmers and Developers by Barry Boone. For a solid two week period, he did nothing but prepare for the test.

"I took one of the Programmer practice exams right off the bat, and scored lower than I expected. In fact, I barely made a passing score. That helped me identify the areas where I needed to improve," he says.

McIntosh notes that the intense project orientation of most Java technology work tends toward a narrow focus. "If you're working on GUI or middle tier exclusively, your breadth of knowledge can suffer," he says. Certification preparation must fill those gaps. "One of the things that caught me off-guard was file I/O. As a GUI specialist, I don't need to read and write files. Preparation for the test showed me that I/O was an area where I needed to focus attention," he says.

The Test

McIntosh located a Sylvan Prometric testing center near his home, bought a $150 voucher and scheduled a test time. The test is computer based, consists of 60 multiple choice and short answer questions, and has a two-hour time limit. You are able to go back and review previous questions and change your answers at any time during the test period.

"The test is unusually structured. There might be five or six answers listed, with a question like: which of the following are true? You have to know precisely which ones are true, and precisely which ones are false. A less than perfect knowledge of the material just won't cut it. So in that sense, I'd say it was the most difficult test to prepare for that I've ever taken," McIntosh observes.

Regarding test taking strategy, McIntosh leans toward going with your first instinct. "Usually when people change their answers, they change to the wrong answer. So I generally refrained from changing anything unless it was glaringly wrong," he says.

McIntosh's intense preparation and test taking strategy resulted in a score in the high 80s. A passing score for JDK 1.1 Programmer is 70%. "Even though numeric scores are not reported, I have certain expectations for my performance—I wanted to do well."

Payoffs

"When you're certified, you feel like you have someone vouching for you. If an ad says they want a certified Java Programmer, I know I'm qualified to seek that job and get that job," says McIntosh. He also mentions that some recent job postings specify that only Java certified candidates need apply. McIntosh attributes his current mentor status to a combination of experience and Sun certification.

Recently, there was a brief lull in McIntosh's roster of consulting assignments. He was only idle for three days, but during that time received no less than 200 phone calls for his services.

"I think certification was a big part of that scenario. I had to leave the house and let the answering system take my calls because my throat was so sore from talking on the phone," he says, laughing.

In terms of increased compensation, McIntosh says, "I have found that the demand for qualified (and certified) Java programmers is exceedingly greater and more rewarding financially, than the corresponding demand for Smalltalk or C++ programmers."

The Developer's Tale

Nancy Walsh is a consultant for Sybase where she is assigned to client companies to develop applications and perform architecture studies. She began coding at age 10, and has over 10 years of professional experience. Java is her current language of choice, but she is also proficient in PERL.

Walsh has just finished helping a Y2K company develop a scanning application using Java, Jaguar (a Sybase application server), and a database back end. She was responsible primarily for the middle-tier code for the server components.

Why Seek Certification?

"In my district, Sybase chose to hold the Java certifications as something they would value. I would probably have done it anyway, eventually, but the company's expressed interest helped motivate me," she says. Sybase encourages certification by providing time and in-house training to help prepare for the exams.

Preparation

Like McIntosh, Walsh did not attend the recommended Sun Education course work to prepare for the Programmer and Developer exams. When she was first learning Java, she took a three day in-house Java overview offered by Sybase. Then she worked at client sites programming in Java for about one year. At that point, she decided to seek certification. She purchased the Java 1.1 Certification Study Guide by Simon Roberts and Philip Heller and began studying it.

"I wasn't too concerned about the content. I felt like I knew the language pretty well. Of more concern was the form and format of the tests," she says. Like McIntosh, she found the preparation book to be extremely helpful in targeting the areas where she was a little weak, especially for the multiple choice/short answer Programmer exam.

Since the Developer exam is a programming assignment that is downloaded from the Sun Educational Services Certification Database, Walsh did not prepare specifically for that portion. She felt that her work experience combined with preparation for the Programmer exam would be sufficient.

The Tests

Walsh found the 1.1 Programmer certification exam to be difficult, mostly due to its format. "It's easy to get it wrong, and very hard to get it right. It's a difficult test, but I felt it covered the material very well." She adds that the preparation book did a good job of covering each section, so there were no real surprises.

Walsh is enthusiastic about the programming assignment for the 1.1 Developer exam. "The Developer exam was well done, and actually the easier of the two. You download the assignment, it gives you a spec and some prebuilt classes, and away you go," she says. You are also required to run your completed project against a "test harness," which is a Java program simulating user inputs. Your code must perform to the expected outputs from this test procedure, or it is automatically disqualified.

She is not so enthusiastic about the second part of the Developer exam, which consists of essay questions about the programming assignment's design. "You were required to defend decisions and explain your reasoning. But since you couldn't have the programming assignment with you, basically you had to memorize all pertinent aspects of your program." Walsh suggests that it could be included as a ReadMe file that would be uploaded along with the completed programming assignment. Also, she did not like having to travel to a Sylvan Prometric testing center once again, to perform this section of the test.

Payoffs

Preparation for the tests results in a much better overall knowledge of Java, according to Walsh. "There are always new extensions and more obscure aspects of the language that test preparation forces you to address," she says.

Certification has not led to any specific short term financial rewards for Walsh, but there is a definite positive perception on the part of management. "They see me as a valuable resource with a quantifiable level of knowledge, which is verified by the Programmer and Developer certifications. And they use the certifications when presenting me to a client to give me additional credibility," she says.

The Architect Exam Reviewer

As Chief Engineer at Online Web Marketing, Matthew Excell is responsible for designing and overseeing the development of database applications, web development deployment applications and a variety of web based solutions. In addition, he's a coder. During the 14 years Excell has been programming, he claims to have acquired 13 languages, excluding scripting languages. "Java is my 13th, and I haven't picked up another, because it can do everything I need," he says.

In high school, Excell began doing volunteer C++ programming for the Department of the Interior. That work led to a number of paid programming and consulting assignments with the government, including some classified security work. He began looking at the Java spec around the time JDK 1.1 was released. By October '97 he was programming in the Java language.

The Call to Adventure

Diane Hudlin, of Sun Educational Services, had posted a query asking for people with extensive project development experience to respond as possible reveiwers for the Java 2 Architect exam. Excell replied, and they traded email as to his current position and professional experience. He was recruited, and flew to Cupertino to participate in the cut/score review. During that process, a group of qualified Java architects and Sun representatives reviewed the questions and decided what the pass/fail cutoff would be. The Architect exam consists of 60 multiple choice and short answer questions. A passing score for the two-hour test was set at 75%.

Defining the Architect

"The term architect is somewhat loosely defined in the industry today. But I define an architect as someone who develops an object-oriented solution that will meet complex sets of goals and requirements. Whether the spec calls for scalability to millions of users, or a very small memory footprint, the design must perform," says Excell.

He indicates that the architect need not be the application coder, but in his experience, successful Architects are almost always proficient programmers.

Observations on Architecture

"Many of the topics covered on the Architect exam are not subjects currently being covered in university computer science programs. If I wanted to hire an architect right now, seeing a university degree on the resume isn't going to tell me anything. And in most cases, you can't talk to the current employer. So if I saw that someone had passed the Java Architect exam, I would be willing to consider them as an architect in any language, because I know they understand object-oriented design and distributed object development. And I know they could handle every stage of the design process," says Excell.

To Certify or Not to Certify

The two certified coders indicated that the test preparation was one of the most demanding experiences they had encountered. They also felt that in the course of preparation they had gained substantial and useful knowledge. Developer Walsh did not have any direct experience to rate the marketability impact of her new certification, but she did feel that management had a favorable impression of the credential. McIntosh attributed the 200 phone calls for his consulting services at least in part to his status as a Certified Java Programmer.

How to Get Certified

Michael Meloan began his professional career writing IBM mainframe and DEC PDP-11 assembly languages. He went on to code in PL/I, APL and C. In addition, his fiction has appeared in WIRED, BUZZ, Chic, L.A. Weekly, and on National Public Radio.

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