Kruzty, I completed the 1.4 certification just before it was withdrawn. I found it very worthwhile despite having nearly 20 years software development experience, the last eight all using Java. I needed about a month with the Cade/Roberts book, a UML book and a copy of Head First EJB to pass the first part, and spent about 80 hours on the second. You can read my guide to the SCEA here: http://www.surfsoftconsulting.com/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=7
Yes, you have to learn some stuff you won't use but - most people learn their trade 'on the job' and this inevitably means that your knowledge outside of the technologies you use day to day will be limited. The only people who won't benefit are those who could sit the exams and complete the coursework without raising a sweat or opening a book. Despite all my experience I found the whole exercise very useful. It helped me be more assertive in justifying architectural and design decisions, completed my knowledge in areas I'd used little or not at all, and I feel better equipped all round when I go onto a new client site (I'm freelance). I was capable of operating as an architect before I took the certification, but without always being able to justify in clear technical terms exactly why one approach was better or worse than another for a given set of circumstances. Don't discard SCEA just because you have to cover entity beans (which are probably the least-used area of JEE). The proportion of study time on this area is small, and you don't need to know how to program them (I've not written a single entity bean in the last seven years) but you are expected to know when to use/not use and the impact on your architecture and design of doing so or not doing so. Finally, not knowing why others are dissing the SCEA I would add that its not necessary for straightforward design and coding, you won't find you use the knowledge gained much. Where it comes in to its own is in architecting systems, big systems. Your average small site can cope with the odd duff architectural decision but big systems that need to scale, and integrate with other systems to tight performance tolerances, cannot. And the SCEA will, in conjunction with experience, help you get your architecture right. Good luck if you decide to proceed. Phil. On Jan 26, 3:37 pm, kruzty <[email protected]> wrote: > Do you think the time and money necessary to become a Sun Certified > Enterprise Architect is worth it? I would like to know if there are > others here that have done it or contemplated doing it and get your > thoughts on the value (or not) of it. > > Also, is a book or two sufficient for studying for it or do you need > to take the courses Sun suggests? > > Thanks, > Andy --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
