SJPP Certification - What is the current state for the certification?

Question

Hi, today in Amazon I found this book: Cracking SJPP: A Comprehensive Sun Java Programmer Plus Certification Study Guide.

I found this book really curious because is about a Sun certification that I was thinking was going to be on hold until Java 7, but today we don't even have an official release date for Java 7. Besides that, I think that Oracle has not pronounced anything about the SJPP certification. So my question is, what do you know about SJPP? Does it make sense to have this book? What is Oracle's position regarding this certification?

Answer 1

There seem to be very little known about this new exam (although at Sun eduction they are talking for years about the new performance based exams).

The book you refer to:

Cracking SJPP: A Comprehensive Sun Java Programmer Plus Certification Study Guide

Is not yet in print, it's scheduled release date is January 2011. So it's seems they have it on hold as well. Also the title name includes Sun, although it's Oracle now, so they don't seem to keep it very up-to-date. At coderanch they say the beta for this spring (Beta Sign Up Form) was canceled this summer. Thus maybe the book is a zombie still left in the publishing database written for an exam that's now canceled. But then again, the book is both listed at Amazon and Apress thus the publisher seems still have it in the pipeline.

My best guess is, that the Oracle take over has put this on hold. And we have to wait and see wether Oracle continues the restructuring of Java theory exams to the new performance based exams.

Keep an eye on:

Oracle University: Java Home

(new Beta Developer exams: JPA certification, JavaServer Faces, Web Services and Enterprise JavaBeans)

Answer 2

Oracle has recently announced the NEW Oracle Certifications. That is which of the old Sun certification will be now part of the Oracle Certifications.

You can find the latest Sun Cert. FAQs posted by Oracle here:

http://blogs.oracle.com/certification/2010/09/0376.html

Updated Java Cert. Paths here:

http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=402&p_nl=JJAV&p_org_id=1001&lang=US