Bill Day's Blog

Free J2ME Certification Exam

Sun is developing a J2ME certification to complement the other Java technology certifications. The exam is now in the "beta" phase, with Sun looking for candidates to take the exam and give feedback on the questions.

The good news: It's free. The really good news: If you pass, you'll be certified!

Learn more about the technologies covered by the exam by reading through the Certification Objectives. Registration is limited but has been extended through early March. Click here for details.

Comments

• Yes and No
  I am certified SCJP/D and the SCJP helped in the past but no manager so far paid attention to the difference between these two certifications. Personally I likded the SCJD certification because it was quite difference to the other certifications like MCSE etc and I actually had to code an application. Today I would advice anyone to participate in an open-source project instead of piling up certifications even thought one of them is not a bad thing. This is because Sun does quite an awful job educating managers about the various certifications and what they prove so it does not matter how many you have.

  Posted by: schaefa on February 25, 2004 at 09:57 PM

• The exam is killer : )
  I've been on the development team for four of Sun's exams (Java Programmer, Business Component Developer (EJB), the upcoming Web Component Developer for J2EE 1.4 (Servlets & JSP), and the Mobile Application Developer (yes, you'll get to say, "I'm Sun Certified MAD") that Bill's talking about.

  I can tell you that of all the exams, this Mobile exam is unique in that it's much more *performance-based* than any of the other previous multiple-choice exams. Instead of what we refer to as "knowledge-based" questions (like, "Which three methods are in the XYZ interface?"), this exam is loaded with code and questions where it's not enough to know the facts of the spec... you have to know the *implication* of the specs and APIs. You have to be able to look at code, for example, and recognize the effect of that code on memory management, speed, and code portability across devices.
  There are also what we unofficially call code-magnetic-poetry questions, where you have to select and rearrange code snippets graphically, to achieve some result, given a design scenario. "From the snippets below, assemble the code that would best allow you to meet this goal: [explanation of how you want the best performance or the lowest resource usage, etc.]"

  I love this exam. I was only one of the ten developers, and I was there more as an exam expert while the rest were the true *subject-matter* experts. But we finished the development with the embarassing knowledge that most of us would have some trouble passing the exam...even knowing what's on it!
  This is also the most *fun* exam, IMHO, because it has a significant number of questions on cool things like game sprites, and the MMAPI. But with a nod to Sue Spielman's reminders that J2ME isn't *just* fun and games : ), there is plenty in the exam objectives to support the business/enterprise aspects of JTWI, including things like security and WMA.
  FYI, a forum was created on javaranch.com for those preparing for this exam, and there you can find mock exam practice questions and stories and tips from the folks who've already taken the beta.
  Best of all, like Bill said, the beta is *free*, but the certification is *real* if you pass. The bad news is that on the beta, you have to answer way, way more questions than on the real exam. On the real exam, each candidate sees only a much smaller subset of the total questions that we've created for the exam, but on the beta, you're asked to take a much larger chunk of them.
  But there's very little to lose (except some time and a few neurons) in taking the beta, even if you know you're not ready, because at the LEAST you'll have a chance to get a free sneak preview of the real exam, and get a much better grasp of what -- and how much -- to study for the Real Thing when it's released in late spring.
  Good luck and have fun. If you've been waiting for a reason to really dive in and start learning the new specs from JTWI (JSR 185) (MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1, WMA 1.1, MMAPI 1.1), this might be a good one. The one thing most exam-takers mention as the number one benefit of prepping for an exam is that it forces you to learn *more* about the topic than the just-in-time, just-what-you-need-for-the-current-project learning most of us do on the job.

  -Kathy
  

  Posted by: kathysierra on February 26, 2004 at 11:15 AM

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