Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Web Component Developer Exam Cram 2 (Exam Cram 310-080)

SCWCD Exam Study Kit: Java Web Component Developer Certification

Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam (SCWCD)

Java 2 Web Developer Certification Study Guide, 2nd Edition

Certification

Sun Certification Training Guide (310-080): Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Web Component Developer

Format: Paperback
Author: Alain Trottier
ReleaseDate: 07 November, 2002
Publisher: Que
Rating:

Don't Use This Book As The Only Study Source For SCWCD
The book omits topic Section 7 - Designing and Developing Thread-Safe Servlets. If you use this book as the only study source, you will be in trouble. Rely on other certification books - like SCWCD Exam Study Kit or Professional SCWCD Certification. Use this book as a supplement.

Don't bother
They demand careful preparation and thorough study. Sun's certification exams are challenging. And they call for careful self-assessment.

The book offers only a point-by-point exposition of Sun's own objectives for the exam. While this fidelity to the exam objectives is laudable, it presents very little material beyond regurgitation of the Servlet API, example code written by others and little material of practical use in developing web applications with servlets and JSP. Sun puts much thought into its exam objectives and they strive to make the exams more than mastery of API trivia. This book It seems that the author has little experience with servlets and JSP outside of writing the book and is unable to illuminate why Sun considers its exam objectives are important.

I mentioned the certification exams call for careful self-assessment. It easy to wear your Hiliter to a nub but practice exams are crucial testing your mastery and indicating areas of further study.

Unfortunately, the three practice exams included in the book haven't even had the passing glance of an editor. Questions call for two multiple choice answers and the answer key gives one or three. Fill in the blank questions are answered in the key as multiple choice. Other answers to questions are flat out wrong. Beyond these obvious errors, a sizeable fraction of the questions are confusingly worded.

And then there is the included CD. The book advertises it as containing a "powerful, full-feature test engine. " What it neglects to mention is that the engine is a Windows application. Is it so much more difficult to develop a Java test engine that can be run on a variety of platforms? Isn't that the Java way? Or, failing that, mention somewhere in the book the system requirements for the CD?.

Good, and yet crap...
The author explains up front that the book is not a comprehensive work on servlets and JSPs, but covers the areas that are on the exam. Being an experienced web developer I found this book to be pitched at the right level to fill out the blanks in my knowledge. He also states that you will have to refer back to the appropriate Sun specifications if you want to fill out your understanding - which I found at some points, I needed to do. With further reading lists provided at the end of each chapter this is not a spoon-feeding book - but it does point you in the right direction.

The material is well covered and some additional real world information is given.

The book's major let-down is the review questions. They are extremely poorly worded - to the point where you question whether the answers you got "right" are actually right. Questions that ask you to pick two answers may actually have one or three when you look them up in the answers section. This is such a tragic oversight that I had to question whether anyone even cast an eye over it in the editing process - a real embarassment for the publisher.

The book is not bad, though. Well covered and on the level. However, if you want to see how you are progressing you would do well to use one of the many free sample exams available on the web, because the review questions are so hopeless.