Update: new Sun Java Programmer Certification

We just completed the development of the new Sun Certified Java Programmer exam, based on Tiger/Java 5.0. It's a dramatically different exam from all previous versions in many ways:

1) More topics and NEW topics. We haven't finalized the wording of every objective, but you can get the as-if final objectives at javaranch. But the main topic changes from the previous exam are the addition of many Tiger features: generics (the most ambitious of the new language questions on the exam), autoboxing--there are some gotchas--make sure you understand what's wrong with this code...
class Foo {
Integer i;
int x = i + 3;
}

co-variant return types, enums, enhanced for (by far the easiest of the new features), and API questions about String.format(), printf() [the same thing!], and the addition of questions on internationalization using java.text things... (more on that when the objective wording is finalized).
Oh yeah, file I/O is back, and my personal favorite topic on the exam is that *finally* serialization is included. The OO topics have been beefed up a tiny bit too--where all previous versions of the exam covered the most basic concepts of IS-A, HAS-A, and encapsulation, the new one adds questions on cohesion and coupling. (Still no design pattern questions though : (

Expect a LOT more on collections, including Comparator and Comparable (and of course using both genericized and legacy non-genericized collections, and how they work (or don't!) together, and even a few more thread questions than on the previous versions.

2) The new exam is a hundred times more performance-based. Where previous versions did have a lot of what we considered knowledge-based questions (multiple-choice, testing you on knowledge of facts/rules), the new exam--which is 100% new (in the past, we've reused questions from previous versions on each new version)--is more than 70% scenario-driven. That means that rather than being asked directly about a particular language rule, you'll be presented with a code example and asked to figure out the implications of different choices made in the code. We've tried REALLY REALLY hard to eliminate the kinds of "puzzle" questions we had before, where you had to look at tricky code you'd fire someone for writing, and figure out what was going on.

There are also about 30% drag and drop questions on the exam. These are the closest we've been able to come to asking you to actually write code during the exam... where you're given a pile of code fragments (some useful, some not) and asked to drag them into place (like refrigerator magnetic poetry, the way we use in the Head First books), to construct code that fulfills the goal.

We were also on a major mission to eliminate the "trivia" questions. You won'd find, for example, questions where you're expected to have memorized the order of arguments on some method from the API, but instead you're expected to know the way things work.

This was our largest exam development team--11 people! It was a grueling process; we are all in a room together at Sun's campus in Colorado, with the windows covered for security and nobody gets back on a plane until the thing is done. And getting 11 Java engineers to agree on what's really important is a challenge.

What this means for Bert and I, though, is that we have to rewrite more than 50% of our SCJP cert book. We won't get fully ramped on doing the update until mid-January, when we start analyzing the beta results. Then it'll be a mad rush to get it out in time to help the first group of people pass the thing.

If you are enrolled in the beta, we will be happy to send you some mock exam questions to help you prepare. We don't want people to take the beta ill-prepared, because that causes the final passing rate on the exam to be lower than we'd like. The better people do on the beta, the higher the pass rate for the final release. So, we're going to give you as much help as we can. You *must* be registered for the beta before we can send the mock exam questions to you, and keep in mind that they'll be beta as well : ), but at least it's something. You don't need to contact us about it--you'll get an email sometime after you register for the beta (through Sun--visit the SCJP forum for details on the beta. I believe it's still open).

Please understand this: the new exam is nothing like all previous exams in difficult, tone, style of question, topics, everything. All previous mock exams (including the ones in our book) will not be enough to prepare you! You need to study a little differently. The good news is, it'll be MUCH more difficult for the "I read a book and now I can pass" folks to get this certification. While the exam has always been one tough mother, the ability to memorize is far less of a help now than the ability to write, evaluate, and troubleshoot code. Even a few refactoring questions : )

Stay tuned.