Tag Archives: oca

when did we write the OCA SE 8 book

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Did you write the second book before or after your exam of OCA SE 8.

I got this question from a reader of our OCA book and thought it would make a nice blog post describing the timeline.

In February 2014, Wiley/Sybex approached me about writing this book. Scott and I had discussed writing a book together “one day” so immediately asked him to co-author. Even though the publisher approached me, I still had to write a proposal which was accepted in March 2014. We then signed the contract.

We wrote a draft of all the chapters over the following months. At this point, the OCA 8 objectives hadn’t been announced. Scott held the SCJP 6 certification and I held the OCA/OCP 7 certifications. We used the OCA 7 objectives plus our expectations about changes to the language as a guide for those drafts.

Then the objectives came out. We had some rework and additions at that point. I was surprised basic lambdas were covered on the exam and Java 8 dates were also new. Then in October, I took the beta exam. At this point, the book was already written.

There was an unclear exam objective. After taking the beta exam, I learned what this meant. Which was a minor addition to the book. Other than that, it was written before the exam. Some editing was done after the exam; just in terms of timeline.

Then in December 2014, the e-book came out and it printed in February 2015.

For our upcoming OCP book, more of the book is being written after the beta exam. Just in terms of timeline, we didn’t have as much of a head start.

using our OCA 8 book to study for the OCA 7?

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As of now, Oracle isn’t allowing developers to take the OCA 8 + OCP 7 to get OCPJP 8 certified. This means that some readers who have already bought our OCA 8 book might want to take the OCA 7. (In particular, those who need to get OCPJP certified by September or so and don’t want to take the beta exam.) Those new to Java/certs and just starting out now aren’t likely to find this constraining and can take the OCA 8.

Timeline

I’m predicting the OCP 8 exam will be released in September because:

  • The beta is launching April 25th.
  • I’m guessing they will give two months taking us to June.
  • Then Oracle needs 10 weeks to prepare the real exam taking us to September.

The beta is good because is is $50. It is bad because it is longer and you don’t get your score for months.

How do I “backport” the book for the OCA 7 exam

This matrix compares the OCA 7 and OCA 8 exams. This means you can read the OCA 8 book to study for the OCA 7 exam with the following changes:

  1. Skip the section on dates/times in Chapter 3.
  2. Skip the section on lambdas/predicates in Chapter 4.
  3. Skip the parts about static/default methods in interfaces in Chapter 5.

You’ll slightly overstudy this way. For example, OCA 7 doesn’t ask you to describe encapsulation. But not by any significant amount.

What JDK should I use?

Remember to either use a Java 7 JDK or compile with the -source 1.7 flag. For example:

javac -source 1.7 Jeanne.java

This will ensure you aren’t accidentally relying on a Java 8 feature. For example, the final keyword works a bit differently in Java 8. Not in a way that affects the OCA exam scope. But you could get confused if compiling with a different version

 

jeanne and scott’s first book – with picture

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The book has either been out for three months or six weeks depending on how you count. (The e-book was released earlier). A couple weeks ago, Scott and I took a picture with the book:

scott-book

 

We’ve also learned that Amazon has a page called authorcentral.amazon.com which shows you “real time” book stats:

stats

 

Well real time with three disclaimers:

  1. It’s updated weekly.
  2. It only includes US sales.
  3. It only includes printed book sales.

While it is bizarre to me that Amazon doesn’t include Kindle sales, it is cool seeing the map. The NY area has the most sales which isn’t surprising. Scott and I both live in the tri-state area and have therefore told the most people there. DC and Dallas were second and third.