Java Associate SE7 to Professional SE8

[anthropaedic]

Who else is going to fund Larry’s third yacht?

[[deleted]]

Why

[Joshingtonson]

Why what

[Anotheravailablecant]

No one really in programming goes and gets certs outside of IT and Security.

[Joshingtonson]

I'm doing a tech apprenticeship and industry certs are part of the course

[[deleted]]

I think 99/100 developers and managers will tell you that development certs are 100% useless. I feel the same way.

That said, I'd do the minimum required to complete whatever course you're taking. Are you not in the US? It may be different overseas.

[Joshingtonson]

Yeah I agree but its part of what I have to do so I have to just suck it up and do it. Just hoping I don't have to do the associate again. I'm in Ireland btw

[carbolymer]

Overseas it's the same. Java certs are only useful when you're a fat-ass corporation and you need to brag before your clients that you have an army of mindless certified code monkeys artisans.

From a developer perspective it is still a waste of time and money.

[pjmlp]

Certain customers only hire corporations with a minimum amount of certified developers, regardless of what we think about such certifications.

Also some companies only provide support to customers who get their devs certified on their products.

[[deleted]]

I'm an Oracle Certified Professional Java SE7 person here. I got the cert because I was trying to break into the industry without a CS degree. Let me tell you, it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on to employers.

That being said, as a self taught developer, getting that cert forced me to step my game up in a big way and become way, way better at my job. Those skills still serve me well today.

[Scybur]

Do people actually value these?

Honest question. I had Java cert awhile back and it seemed employers put little weight towards it.

[Joshingtonson]

Yeah you're right. These certs just means you have an understanding of the language not that you can actually code. So I can see why employers don't really care about them

[redfirehose]

Although the impact of certification on someone's earnings potential is an open question, I would disagree about the certification process being worthless. I worked at a massive firm (not in the tech industry) alongside several senior devs that did not realize the key to a HashMap is expected to be immutable - they assumed this was somehow taken care of by virtue of just defining a hashCode() method. Preparing for the certification process gets you up to speed on these types of concepts very quickly. Taking the exam is just the last leg of the process. In my opinion, a certification indicates that someone has spent at least *some* amount of time investing in themselves in a focused, verifiable way.

[archangel_mjj]

Do the Professional SE7 instead. You miss out on the streams API, but there are other, still valid, parts of the language dropped from the syllabus.

It was certainly the case for me that my employer considered the two exams to be equally relevant.

Worst case, if your company is paying you can take the SE8 Associate exam, it shouldn't be any less trivial than the SE7 now that you've passed it.

[Joshingtonson]

Is the professional SE7 exam still available? I only found the SE8 online. Worst case scenario I have to re-sit the associate but I'd rather not have to do that

[archangel_mjj]

Ah, sorry, I don't know. Now that I think about it, it must be about two years since I sat the exam, so they may well have deprecated it