Best Approaches for J2EE Certification?

facetiousprogrammer writes "I have been working for several years at the same company. As part of the 2007 goal, my team is required to get the Brainbench J2EE certification. We have a good knowledge of the Java programming language itself but very little exposure to J2EE. Other teams in the company are using J2EE daily — hence the push for certification. What would be the best approach to be successful in getting the J2EE certification knowing that we won't work or get formal training on J2EE? Is it a desperate cause?"

Those who can't teach themselves get a Comp Sci BS

[cyranoVR]

I disagree. From personal experience, I've found that job applicants who are Sun Certified Java Programmers at least know Java syntax and SDK libraries. For those without the certification, you just have to hope they didn't get hired by bullshiting their way through the technical questions.

Illustrative annecdote:

Recently I had to work with a very bright Comp Sci graduate of a prestigious Ivy League school. He did well in the interview and professed to know Ruby, Lisp and Perl in addition to Java (which had been "coding since version 1.1"). He knew enough about OOP and patterns to sound like a Java expert and so we hired him. For his first project (a web application) he wrote the following bit of code:

servletContext.setAttribute("SomeAttribute", "TRUE");

When I asked him why he had used a String constant for true, he patiently explained that Java didn't have object versions of its primitives(!).

I've seen this one from multiple un-certified Java programmers: what if getInvoiceDate() returns null?

Date date = getInvoiceDate();
String output = ""+amt;

This is fine as long as your functional spec allows "null" as a valid value for output. Ours didn't. Oops!

On large projects you don't have time to make every code review an impromptu "Java basics" tutorial. Knowing your team members have a Java Certification that guarantees they're not spending hours learning how to use (or re-implementing!) Integer, StringBuffer and HashMap. This can add a comfort level that makes a big difference in terms of team productivity.

Re:Those who can, do. Those who can't, get certifi

[CowboyBob500]

I wholeheartedly agree. If I get a CV (resume) in that has the certifications at the top above the experience, it goes in the bin. If they're at the end, then I'll carry on reading. It's all about emphasis. Any candidate that emphasises their certification is always hiding something about their ability in my experience. This isn't just a knee-jerk reaction either, it's definitely a trend I've gradually noticed over the years.

Bob