Mala Gupta - OCP Java SE 7 Programmer II Certification Guide: Prepare for the 1ZO-804 exam

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Development editor: Cynthia KaneTechnical editor: George ZurowskiCopyeditor: Jodie AllenProofreader: Alyson BrenerTechnical proofreaders: Roel De Nijs, Jean-Franois MorinTypesetter: Dennis DalinnikCover designer: Marija Tudor

ISBN: 9781617291487

Printed in the United States of America

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To Dheeraj, my pillar of strength

The OCP Java SE Programmer II certification is designed to tell would-be employers that you really know your basic and advanced Java stuff. It certifies that you understand and can work with design patterns and advanced Java concepts like concurrency, multithreading, localization, string processing, and JDBC. The exam preparation helps you to understand the finer details of the Java language and its implementation and usage, which is crucial to writing quality code.

Cracking this exam is not an easy task. Thorough preparation is crucial if you want to pass the exam the first time with a score that you can be proud of. You need to know Java inside and out, and you need to understand the certification process so that youre ready for the challenging questions youll face on the exam.

This book is a comprehensive guide to the 1Z0-804 exam. Youll explore a wide range of important Java topics as you systematically learn how to pass the certification exam. Each chapter starts with a list of the exam objectives covered in that chapter. Throughout the book youll find sample questions and exercises designed to reinforce key concepts and prepare you for what youll see on the real exam, along with numerous tips, notes, and visual aids.

Unlike many other exam guides, this book provides multiple ways to digest important techniques and concepts, including comic conversations, analogies, pictorial representations, flowcharts, UML diagrams, and, naturally, lots of well-commented code.

The book also gives insight into typical exam question mistakes and guides you in avoiding traps and pitfalls. It provides

• Complete coverage of exam topics, all mapped to chapter and section numbers
• Hands-on coding exercises, including particularly challenging ones that throw in a twist
• Instruction on whats happening behind the scenes using the actual code from the Java API source
• Everything you need to master both the concepts and the exam

This book is written for developers with a working knowledge of Java. My hope is that the book will deepen your knowledge, prepare you well for the exam, and that you will pass it with flying colors!

First and foremost, I thank Dheeraj. He helped me to get started with this book, and his guidance, encouragement, and love enabled me to get over the goal line.

My sincere gratitude to Marjan Bace, publisher at Manning, for giving me the opportunity to author this book.

An extremely talented individual, Cynthia Kane, my development editor at Manning, was a pleasure to work with. She not only helped me improve the organization of the chapters, she also pulled me up whenever the task of completing the book became overwhelming for me.

The contributions of Roel De Nijs, technical proofreader on this book, are unparalleled. His feedback helped me to improve all sections and chapters. Jean-Franois Morin, technical proofreader for a few chapters, also helped me to improve the book just before it went into production.

Gregor Zurowski, my technical editor, provided great insight and helped iron out technical glitches as the book was being written.

Apart from applying her magic to sentence and language constructions, Jodie Allen, my copyeditor, was very supportive and patient in applying changes across all chapters.

Id also like to thank Ozren Harlovic, review editor, for managing the review process and meticulously funneling the feedback to me to make this book better.

Mary Piergies, Alyson Brener, and Kevin Sullivan were awesome in their expertise at turning all text, code, and images into publishable form. I am also grateful to Candace Gillhoolley and Ana Radic for managing the promotion of this book.

Next, Id like to thank all the MEAP readers for trusting me by buying the book while it was being written. I thank them for their patience, suggestions, corrections, and encouragement.

Technical reviewers helped in validating the chapters contents at various stages of their development. The reviewers detailed and helpful feedback helped me to improve the book throughout the writing process: Alexander Schwartz, Ashutosh Sharma, Bill Weiland, Colin Hastie, Dylan Scott, Jamie Atkinson, Kevin Vig, Kyle Smith, Manish Verma, Mikael Strand, Mikalai Zaikin, Robin Coe, Simon Joseph Aquilina, Steve Etherington, and Witold Bolt. Special shout-out to Mikalai for his detailed feedbackit helped me to improve the contents enormously.

I thank my former colleagues Harry Mantheakis, Paul Rosenthal, and Selvan Rajan, whose names I have used in coding examples throughout the book. I have always looked up to them.

Finally, I thank my parents and my daughters, Shreya and Pavni. This book would have been not been possible without their unconditional support, love, and encouragement.

This book is written for developers with a working knowledge of Java who want to earn the OCP Java SE 7 Programmer II certification (exam 1Z0-804). It uses powerful tools and features to make reaching your goal of certification a quick, smooth, and enjoyable experience. This section will explain the features used in the book and tell you how to use the book to get the most out of it as you prepare for the certification exam. More information on the exam and on how the book is organized is available in the Introduction.