de tomKronieken

Zulfikar Dharmawan gives a short overview of how the SJCD looks like. I know this. I have received the assignment some time ago (looks like several lifetimes...), but I never got myself motivated to do it. A big part of the assignment goes on byte[] handling (in functions, in network streams), on parts you aren't allowed to modify. I almost never use arrays, because they're too cumbersome to work with. I almost never need them either (can you say "List"?).

Another part of the exam is implementing your own network protocol (how often do you do that during web development?) using either these byte streams or RMI. And yet another part is about Swing (as does the Sun Certified Java Programmer's exam): if you don't know Swing, you don't know Java. Yeah, sure.

All in all, I think it's a pretty weird way to investigate whether you know Java. "Yeah, we have all this nifty API's in Java, but for now, you're not allowed to use them. Except for this one, that you don't really need, you have to use that one. Now prove that you understand the language." I believe that, to understand Java, you're better of finding your way around the API(s) than knowing how the >>> operator works (or was it <<< ? I did know it once when taking (and amply passing!) my SCJP exam), or knowing what the default LayoutManager for Panel is.