Progress on the OCA: Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide

book-pdf

In September, Scott and I announced we were writing a book for the OCA (Java 8) exam. Just over a month later, the book cover is up on Amazon along with the estimated publish date of December 31, 2014. I assume this means early January as I find it hard to believe anything happens at a large company during Christmas/New Year’s Week.

It’s great to see progress though. The book is now starting the technical proofreading stage. Yesterday, our tech proofer showed us what the PDF or some of the chapters looks like. it was really cool seeing the jump from a (heavily edited and iterative) Word document to a sharp looking PDF. It’s also exciting seeing something we wrote in near final form.

jeanne’s oca/ocajp 8 java programmer I experiences

Two years ago, I took the OCA/OCAJP 7 Java programmer I exam and wrote about my experiences. I took the exam this time as part of writing the Java OCA 8 Programmer I Study Guide.

What’s new in version 8?

As you can see from the OCA/Java SE 8 Programmer I official exam page, most of the objectives are the same on OCA 7 and OCA 8. There is a mapping by objective title/number on CodeRanch. The new topics were:

  • Running from the command line
  • Compare and contrast the features and components of Java such as: platform independence, object orientation, encapsulation, etc.
  • Wrapper classes
  • Lambdas/predicates
  • Java 8 date/time classes

How did I study?

As I got a 98% on the previous version of the exam, I didn’t really need to study. [edit: I got a 91% of the OCAJP 8 and a perfect score on all the new Java 8 topics]. It was more of review. Plus writing a book on the topic really gets you ready.  I “studied” by doing all of our review and practice exam questions within a week of the test. This also served as a nice sanity check that the questions we wrote prior to taking the beta were decently in sync. (It’s interesting when writing a cert book that you are writing the questions without seeing the exam. This is good as it prevents accidentally mirroring the questions of the moment in the book. As Oracle changes questions over time, it is better to be learning the topics/tricks from a book and improving your skills/test taking ability.)

To learn the Java 8 in the first place, I read two books:

Oracle has some tutorials:

I also wrote a bunch of practice code. And wrote lots of lambda expressions in other languages.

Test Day

  • The exam software claimed that if you pressed the control key, it would cross out an answer so you could remember which ones you eliminated. That’s a good idea. Unfortunately, pressing the control key did absolutely nothing and clicking merely selected an answer I wanted to rule out as correct. I hope they fix this as it is a nice feature.
  • When I took the OCA 7, I had all the time in the world. On this exam, I had enough time to do the questions, but not enough to review them all. The beta gives you just over a minute per question. The real exam gives more time.
  • I went back to my usual exam center. They gave me an “erasable notebook” with 9 pages and an eraser. This meant I could write as much as I wanted. I probably filled about 4 pages as I went. It’s not the same as the paper/pen they used to gie, but is perfectly sufficient.

Announcing the OCA: Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide

Jeanne and I are pleased to announce the upcoming release of our Oracle Certified Associate Java 8 Study Guide for the Java SE 8 Oracle Programmer I exam! We have been working with Wiley Publishing for the past year to bring this book to light, and are thrilled to announce it is nearing completion. Our goal was create a book that is engaging and fun for new and veteran developers alike. The book covers all of the new features that you are required to know for the OCA 8 exam including: the Local Date/Time API, the Period class, lambda expressions, and more. And of course, it covers the “old” topics as well.

scott-and-jeanne
The book, to be tentatively titled OCA: Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide: Exam 1Z1-808, will be available for purchase later this year on Amazon.com and wherever books are sold.

Oracle has already published a beta version of the Java SE 8 Programmer I exam, with the official version to be available in the coming months.

Please visit our new OCA: Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide page for the latest information about the book. If you have any questions for us, feel free to post in the OCA forum at CodeRanch, which Jeanne and Scott visit frequently.