This weekend I finished my EJB 3.0 book, which has made the books I read on Hibernate and Spring obsolete. Oh well, I'm glad to have found what I think is the right path to be taking. The books on Hibernate and Spring were exploratory as I knew there was a lot of talk about them but had no clue what they were. I counted the number of books I have read (cover to cover) over the past year. Nine!! Core Java Server Faces, Hibernate In Action, Spring In Action, Core J2EE Patterns, Java in a nutshell, Eclipse, XML in a nutshell, EJB 3.0, and at some point I also read Designing with web standards - a complete waste of time and money. That wasn't part of the title, it was my opinion. The whole book was marketing to sell me on the idea rather than showing me how.

People often ask if the information in the books stick since I have read so many. Yes, it sticks in two ways. 1) The information that I put into practice on my java project at work is burned into memory. 2) I don't remember the fine details about the information I have not put into practice, but more importantly I do remember the concepts and the big picture. It helps me know what's out there, what I can and can't do, and helps make design decisions. When it comes time to put one of these skills to use I refer to my books and the Internet.

I still have a few books I have purchased but not read yet: 1) JUnit in Action (very important to get this read ASAP) 2) Sun Certified Java Programmer for Java 5 Study Guide (reading it now), 3) Design Patterns in Java (the original GOF patterns using code examples in Java), and 4) Beginning J2ME (cell phone and PDA programming).

My unguided journey to Java enlightenment is taking a long time, but I knew it would. It takes a lot of time and effort, and in the end the payoff will be well worth it. After my Sun Certified Java Programmer certification, I'll be getting the certified developer, and Enterprise Architect. I want to master all the skills related to the paperwork done for software projects such as the requirements document, functional specification, etc... and eventually move into a senior position. Actually, my ultimate dream is to be involved in the paperwork and design of the system, then manage a team of talented programmers to write the code according to spec and ensuring high quality usign well known techniques. Realistically I think I'm at least a few years away from that. I need to feel that I have mastered every aspect of what I'm doing (planning, programming and management skills), which only comes from study and experience. The Java EE world is a very large one.

Anyway.. back to the present. I think this study guide will take me all of September and October to get through before I take the exam in November.