Category Archives: Java Certification

consistency is a lovely thing

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Since Oracle certifications are tied to version numbers, they periodically announce the retirements of old exams. This is reasonable. They even publish a page of retiring exams and include this fact on the all exams list.

However, this is incomplete and currently inconsistent.

The retiring exam page currently lists the Java 7 certs, but not the Java EE 6 certs. On the other hand, if you go to the page for a Java EE cert that is retiring, it says in the title that the exam is retiring.

On the third hand, if you go to a page for a Java 7 cert that is retiring, it does not say anywhere on that page that it is retiring.

I hope Oracle fixes this. It’s confusing!

when will the java 9 (or 18.9) OCA/OCP cert be available

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At CodeRanch, we frequently encounter the question, “should I take the OCA/OCP 8 certification exam or wait for the Java 9 cert to come out. My answer is to take the Java 8 cert. It could be a long wait for Java “9” certs.

Two months ago, I posted a comment that I’d be shocked if the OCP 9 was out by mid-2018:

  • March 18, 2014 – Java8 released
  • August 31, 2014 – OCA 8 beta opens
  • April 28, 2015 – OCP 8 beta opens

Granted the Java 8 exam had a lot more changes than the Java 9 exam will have. Especially on the OCP. So it shouldn’t take AS LONG for Java 9. But I would be shocked if the OCP 9 was out the middle of next year.

That was before the announcement of a 6 month release cycle for Java with a long term release every three years. The roadmap lists Java 9 and Java 18.3 as being non-long term support releases with the first one coming out in September 2018 with Java 18.9.

I imagine Oracle would update the cert with 18.9. It makes sense to do it after the results of a re-branding. It makes sense to do it when things are more stable. I feel like Java 9 is still “figuring out” Jigsaw and there will be changes by then. I also thing they are going to tie the cert to the long term support releases. It’s a lot of work to update the cert and doing that every 6 months seems like something they won’t undertake.

But no worries. The Java 6 cert still exists so it isn’t like the Java 8 one is getting pulled out from under us!

Disclaimer: I do not work for Oracle nor is this post based on anything Oracle has said. It represents my opinion.

 

 

 

our oca book as an amazon prime lightning sale

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Today was Amazon Prime Day. among other things, they have lightning sales. Our OCA 8 book was one of them.

Up to 100 people could buy a discounted copy of the book. Six people did when I checked shortly before the sale ended. I’m impressed that anyone knew about it. That or 6 people normally buy the book in the 6 hour timespan of the sale and this was random luck.

This screenshot shows our first Amazon Prime Day lightning sale. Very cool.

I read online that some Amazon sales are illusions. So I checked on Camel Camel Camel. In the last three months, the price was never lower than $29 and averaged over $30. So twenty five and change is in fact a sale. Happy Prime Day.