General note: I didn’t get much out of this . The font/resolution was too small/blurry for the demo even full screen and I had some “distractions” at my end. I’m sure it was recorded and in theory I can go back and watch it one day. The demo was fine though. I got the idea. Felt kinda commercial like. And was shorter than I expected. Listed as 25 minutes; was 15. And only half was demo. The other half felt like doc reading. Oh well. My notes:
Dependabot
Enable in settings: Dependabot alerts
Get security alerts on dependencies
See in email or in UI
Can make pull requeests
Codespaces
containerized
web based VS Code. Or connect from standalone VS code
The FIRST FRC robotics team I mentor uses VS Code. So I’m always comparing it to Eclipse. This meant that Loiane’s talk today on using it was useful. It was good to see how a professional developer is using VSCode. And how to set it up properly. It was also nice seeing it for stuff I use outside the FIRST robotics ecosystem (Spring, Tomcat, etc)
My notes from Loiane Groner’s talk – @Loiane
Install Visual Studio Code for Java – comes with JDK and extensions wan
tIf already have (or get from FIRST robotics and are using that package), Loiane uses these extensions:
Java + Spring Extensions Back (by Microsoft)
Spring Boot extension back
Tomcat (or Jetty)
SonarLint
XML
Lombok
Checkstyle
Docker
Other notes
Can edit the JSON settings to point to multiple Java runtime for different versions.
One is default.Java overview page – show each time, not just went new. This will show each time open a Java project and get major shortcuts/docs
Demo of command pallet
Views on left side – ex Java projects (shows all classes), Tomcat
Remember to right click for menus
Can open pom.xml, right click and add dependencies
Update (11/05/2020): Read The 1Z0-819 Exam page to learn how you can easily our Java 11 Study Guides to prepare for Oracle’s 1Z0-819 Exam, as well as the 1Z0-817 Upgrade Exam.
I’m not willing to take the exam online so I signed up at a local testing center. I took this exam at a different center than where I took the AWS one since it wasn’t offered there. This exam center is a short bus ride away. (The AWS one was walking distance.) Overall, I think this center handled it better. They have more space so I was naturally further away from other people. I was also given hand sanitizer immediately on entry.
I was asked to take off my mask twice (once to verify I match my id and once to take a photo). That seems like it could have been combined.
Writing instruments
I haven’t been offered pencil/paper at an Oracle exam in years. This was the first time I wasn’t given an eraser for the erasable board. The proctor did come by towards the middle to see if I needed a second one though. (I did not).
Getting the score
I received my score immediately on completing the exam. It appeared right when I clicked finish. I was then given a printout saying “Your exam results are not available at this time… 30 minutes”. It looks like they are transitioning how it works. I’m happy to get a real time score again though! It’s been a while. (My score was 72%. That’s just barely passing. But that’s a story for another blog post)
Exam timing
You get 90 minutes to answer 50 questions. I can easily imagine someone running out to time on the exam. I finished going through a first pass of all the questions with 30 minutes left. However, I essentially skipped two (aka I guessed.) They weren’t hard – about control/flow. But they were time consuming. And I wanted to use the remaining time to go through the questions again to make sure I could say that our Complete Study Guide prepares you for the 819 exam. And it does.
Test taking skills are definitely important on this exam. For example, I looked at the answers before reading questions with a bunch of code. This gave me a clue what to look for. And also told me that I could read faster if there was “do not compile” option.
Question Distribution
When taking an exam, you have to agree not to share what was on it. So no details about what was covered. Sharing the distribution of questions by objective is fair game though!
Objective
# Questions
Working with Java Data Types
About 5
Controlling Program Flow
3
Java Object-Oriented Approach
10-15
Exception Handling
4
Working with Arrays and Collections
About 4
Working with Streams and Lambda Expressions
10
Java Platform Module System
4
Concurrency
2
Java I/O API
3
Secure Coding in Java SE Application
2
Database Applications with JDBC
1
Localization
1
Annotations
1
(The counts don’t add up to 50 because a few questions covered multiple objectives for the early objectives)
815 vs 816 topics
Our books are labeled with 815 and 816. On the 819, it was split almost evenly. However, the difficulty of questions was uniform. It was just the topics that got distributed.
Where the topics what expected?
Almost. Enthuware wrote that doPrivileged was on the exam. We had used the Secure Coding Guide when writing our security chapter. Oracle updated the guide since the 816 came out. They also revised the exam. The word “privileged” was not in the objectives for the 816!
Should I take the 817 or 819?
Those who hold a Java 6, 7 or 8 certification are eligible for their choice of the 817 or 819 exams. They cost the same. The 819 allows half the time, but has a little over half the questions. So you have less time per question on the 819. Additionally, the 817 passing score cutoff is a bit lower.
While the 817 has a lot on modules (3/10 objectives), there are a lot of topics on the 819 not on the 817 (concurrency, secure coding, JDBC, localization, and annotations). Combined with the longer time for the 817, you are likely to find it an easier exam.
An important disclaimer about randomness
With only 50 questions, randomness is a bigger factor. This means you could easily not see questions on a topic. Or get more than someone else on another topic. Be careful as you read the experiences of people who have taken the exam. Just because they didn’t get a question on X doesn’t mean that you won’t! So you don’t get to skip studying topics.
