Oracle Certified JAVA programmer exam preparation

    Quite by chance I noticed that a guide for a relatively new exam from Oracle appeared on dzone and also decided to write.

    I will say right away that there will be no silver bullet golden hammer to pass this exam. Among Java developers, the desire for best practices is widespread. Since many problems have already been solved by someone during the nearly 20-year process of language development, it is considered bad practice among programmers to invent your own bicycle. A true Java guru thinks with paradigms from the books of Josh Bloch and Bruce Eckel . It always touched me, who came from other languages. In this case, you will have to work hard, because There is no ideal source for preparation yet.

    I passed the exam the second time, so maybe for someone my approach to the preparation will seem too harsh. But it is so established in Russia. When I came to hand over for the first time about new features of Java 7 I knew only from books. The reason for this was that at that time in all my projects the 6th version of the JVM was used. On the home computer, I could not put the implementation from Oracle because no applet started normally with it! With the transition to Mountain Lion and the release of new bug fixes, I can say that the 7th Java machine under the poppy works no worse than on Linux. Maybe a little slower, but overall the same.

    Why am I all this? Moreover, the lion's share of questions in the exam is just for features of the 7th version of Java. To be more precise, special attention should be paid to:
    • try-with-resources
    • precise rethrow
    • diamond syntax
    • binary literals
    • switch for strings
    • Jdbc
    • NIO.2
    • Singleton, DAO and Factory patterns


    The exam does not require thorough knowledge of all APIs, focusing on the so-called corner cases. That is, places that are not described in books, and their understanding comes only after the practice of working with a particular class. Here is my list of things that really helped prepare for the change and cross the threshold of 80 points:

    • A lot, rather, even MUCH thoughtfully written code. In my work, I mainly deal with Java web components, and to understand many of the things I have not used (such as NIO.2), my own projects helped to use them. Unlike all previous Sun certifications, this exam cannot be memorized, you really need to code a lot!
    • Nice book A comprehensive OCPJP 7 guide . Unfortunately, it is full of typos and inaccuracies, especially in terms of mock tests
    • Mock exams by Enthuware ($ 10). In the new edition, they changed dramatically, but still I can not recommend them as the only source of training
    • Pro Java 7 NIO.2 by Apress
    • The K&B SCJP 6 study guide , which has already become a classic , has a wonderful chapter on IO


    Knowing the Collections API, the ability to use try-with-resources, the knowledge of regular expressions, the experience with NIO.2 and the experience in creating multi-threaded applications really helped me a lot when passing the exam.

    Good luck

    OCAJP Exam Preparation Description

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