SUN CA : University of Delhi Agraj's Weblog

Sun Microsystems has always been innovative in introducing technology to students via different measures. Apart from the various resources(free softwares, study material, tech tips on blogs) that it offers to students via various open source communities and forums, it has also introduced some online courses for students:

Introduction to Solaris and opensolaris.org
An introduction to the Solaris Operating Environment and the
opensolaris opensource project. You will learn about some key
technologies that makes Solaris to be a leading Operating Environment,
ZFS - a new generation of filesystems, Solaris Containers - OS level
Virtualization and DTrace - an revolution in tracing frameworks.

Real World Technologies, NetBeans GUI Builder, JRuby, JavaFX, and Java ME
This is an introduction level course that leads you to the basics of JavaFX, NetBeans GUI, JRuby, and JavaME programming.

These courses are free of cost. You only need a SDN account, that comes for free after simple registration process.
And add to that, you will also earn a certificate on successful completion of the course. What else can you ask for ?
So, what are you waiting for. Go take these courses and make the best use of your time.

TV as you know is a form of entertainment. On other other hand, NetBeans is a multi-lingual IDE, a community and a platform, let's say something inherently technical.

NetBeans T.V. is an amalgamation of both, i.e. an effort that joins both your hands. Explore it here. The part which i liked the most were the high-quality screencasts that really make your life simpler by delivering tutorials in an out-of-box fashion. Other than screencasts, it boasts of latest tech-news related to NetBeans and a wonderful community that is always ears to your problems.

Another worth mentioning resource, which i personally prefer is NetBeans Master Index available here. It has it all. Everything that you would ever need to know about NetBeans can be found here. And yes, you can also contribute it in. We at Sun encourage you to write tutorials, articles describing any new feature you want to.

Also you can have a look at the multi-faceted face of NetBeans here.

Here's a quick review of Questions and Answers that i'm normally asked when i talk about various Sun Certifications in my demos

Q.  What's SCJP ?
A.  SCJP stands for Sun Certified Java Programmer. It is one of the many certifications that Sun Microsystems offers to students and professionals alike to distinguish them from the rest and appraise their expertise. This foundation certification is for programmers interested in demonstrating proficiency in the fundamentals of Java Programming Langugae

Q. Why SCJP ?
A. Having a certification certainly distinguishes you from the herd. And as a student, it only adds to your value and to your resume. Any software organization would prefer having certified students/professionals rather than those who it might need to train. And may be that's why, its costs around Rs. 7000 as of now.

Q. INR 7000 ? Isn't is too costly ?
A. Depends on how you look at it. If you look at the benefits of being certified, it certainly is not costly. And with SAI (Sun Academic Initiative) in your reach, the cost boils down by around 40% (now thats really cool)

Q. SCJP and SAI ??
A. Learn more about SAI here, and if your institute is registered, then you can take free online practice tests, passing which avails you the benefit of a discount upto 40% on the total cost of the examination. I'm not too sure of these figures though.

Q. Any idea about the exam pattern of SCJP ?
A. Its entirely based on personal experience. 2 months back, my brother cleared it, so i know from his experience. At that time, it consist of around 72 questions with 3 hours given to solve them. And the paper can be taken online only at certain NIIT centers as far as Delhi is concerned. All the questions were multiple-choice with only one choice being the correct one.

Q. SCJP Resources ?
A. If you google over it, there is a huge world which might make you go crazy. On a more serious note, the best place to start for a Java Programmer is to study a very good book by Kathy Sierra, especially written for the certification purposes. The book is self-sufficient and explains all the necessary concepts in a clean manner illustrating with examples and figures when necessary. Apart from it, one should also got for several mock exams (available over net for free) to get a feel of the real exam. The book can be easily found by googling over it. In case you are unable to find it, do let me know.

Q. I'm a newbie to Java. Where should i start from ?
A. Unfortunately, the examination is not for you (at the moment). First, one should get a feel and basic hold of the programming language and then only start thinking in terms of getting certified.

Q. Which one should i go for ? SCJP 5.0 or SCJP 6.0 ?
A. In my opinion, the best place to start with, is SCJP 5.0 as SCJP 4.0 is useless in today's scenario and SCJP 6.0 is really advanced. Although SCJP 5.0 would also contain many new concepts and mechanims unknown to programmers who worked on JDK 1.4 and below (examples - things like var args, generics, autoboxing etc) but they can be learned easily using the Kathy Sierra Book i mentioned earlier

Q. Where to go next ?? i.e after SCJP ?
A. Depending on what you want to do with the certification and your
preference. If you prefer working on the web front-end, go for SCWCD.
If you are using EJB and developing enterprise app, you can go for
SCBCD. Each of these certifications aims at different technologies.

Q. What other certifications Sun offers ?
A. Have a look at this and you will know.
 

The content of this blog is based on my personal experience interacting with different SCJP certified professionals as well as with students and it does not reflect in any way the opinion of my employer.

Any suggestions, updations and corrections are welcome. Please post them as comments.