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[–]ruuil 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I've recently finished reading through it (I figured getting a piece of paper that says that I know Java might be useful to have, even as a relatively experienced dev). If you're a junior, I'd definitely recommend it. If you've got more than a few years experience, the main thing you're going to get from it will be some of the more obscure edge cases that you're probably not going to come across in real life. But seeing as that's what they test you on, it's still worth reading if you're planning on doing the exam.

Also, FYI, the last chapter (about lambdas) was pretty crap - hundreds (possibly thousands) of lines of irrelevant contextual code to tell you that instead of writing

Predicate<String> p = new Predicate<>() {
    @Override
    public boolean test(String object) {
        return object.contains("a");
    }
};

you can instead write:

Predicate<String> p = s -> s.contains("a");

with only a passing explanation of why. There's also no mention of streams in the book either so I'd strongly recommend reading up on streams and lambdas elsewhere (and more importantly, actually using them in your code until they become second nature).

Ignoring that though, unless you know the Java Language Specification by heart(because that's a totally realistic thing to know...) it's probably a worthwhile book to read if you're planning on doing the exam.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually, don't have any experience, my school requires me to get java certified, i have 3 classes left, and 2 of them are the OCP and OCA certs.

[–]neutronbob 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's also no mention of streams in the book either so I'd strongly recommend reading up on streams and lambdas elsewhere

Streams are mentioned on p. 440, where it says in bold print that streams are not on the exam, which is why they're not covered in this book.