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O'Reilly Now Competing With Sun Java Certificates
Joel Aufgang writes "O'Reilly Media's O'Reilly School of Technology in partnership with the University of Illinois has just launched a Java Programming Certificate Series, which looks like it's intended to compete with the Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP) certification. According to O'Reilly's press release, this is not an exam-based certification but rather a series of project based instructor-led courses that, if you pass, earns certification backed by the University of Illinois. Also interesting is the use of Eclipse as the preferred learning platform as opposed to Netbeans."
"I took a class." can be even more easily abused than, "I passed a test." for posing false technical capability. Maybe not though. The market is definitely flooded with people using certifications to mean "ability." I hope this mitigates the problem rather than continuing it.
I took one earlier this year. It was primarily good for testing my ability to regurgitate information about the language and APIs. That's it.
If I were an employer, I would give much more credence to someone coming in as an entry level hire or switching from another language if they had something like this. Lab-based, graded courses show that you have at least some practical ability to apply the material.
In hindsight, I agree with a professor of mine who said that a single, solid A in a 400-level CS class is probably worth more than any programming certification starting out. If you want to do this on the cheap, just take a few classes at a community college. That's what I'm doing to get some "official training" to back up the fact that I do know C# well enough to make the switch from Java. One or two audited courses will have the same effect, but cost me less than $300 and I'll only have to do a few homework assignments and exams :)
Java Certification only proves you know how to answer trick questions. It's primarily just shows lines with several operators in it and you have to know which ones take priority.
The correct answer to most of the questions should be "This code is so horrible I would rewrite it to be clearer".
When hiring, I've found Java Certified people to be worse than the norm, in no way does it actually test your ability to program.
It's turtles all the way down.
What happened to jBuilder?
I use Netbeans at work extensively since about 5.5. Dependent projects, auto compiling java code from WSDL web services, debug to tomcat in one click. PHP integration now in 6.5. Rarely do I actually have to screw with the conf files as I had to do with eclipse. Worth a second look.
A good IDE is a productivity tool. It leverages computer power to make your job faster, via things like "Intellisense", drag & drop code, easy refactoring tools, visual tools, etc. It's unfortunate that these IDEs don't come with a "Power Slider" to let you control things like what get cached and what doesn't.
However, in your case, XP really sucks on one gig of RAM. I've seen VS 2005 take an entire gig just for large project. Remember, the IDE isn't trying to be a pig here, it's trying to cache all kinds of things in memory to make your job easier and faster. But your laptop is definitely a few years behind the curve. You're basically asking why your Power Drill isn't working very well with your AAA batteries.