JavaBlackBelt : News

Using Vaadin for BlackBeltFactory

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:38:33 GMT

John has written a blog entry (1st part) relating our programming experience of using Vaadin for developing BlackBeltFactory.

JavaBlackBelt v4 - coaches marketplace.

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:58:42 GMT

We are pleased to deploy "BlackBeltFactory" (the next version of JavaBlackBelt). This beta is good enough to redirect the urls JavaBlackBelt.com and BlackBeltFactory.com to it. Note that the "front site" has been integrated in the application. The exam part is still in previous version layout and technology (Struts2), while the home page and the course stuff have been written with Vaadin and benefits a new Layout. A more official release and announcement will follow. Please report any problem/suggestion on the forum.

Classroom Coached e-Learning @ Brussels

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:37:55 GMT

March 15-16, we organize a "Classroom Coached e-Learning" session at Brussels in English/French.

In that formula, a coach individually guides students in the same classroom. Each student follows a different course at his own pacing.

Registration

QCon London March 8-12

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:24:59 GMT

The fourth annual London enterprise software development conference designed for team leads, architects and project management is back!

Tutorials: March 8-9, 2010

Conference: March 10-12, 2010

Discount of an additional £50 off when you use de discount code "JavaBlackBelt". If you register before Feb 22, you will get a total £247 disount.

Classroom Coached e-Learning @ Paris

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:52:57 GMT

Ces 1 & 2 mars, Zenika organise une session "Classroom Coached e-Learning" JavaBlackBelt, en Français.

Dans cette formule, un coach guide différents étudiants, en tête à tête, dans la même salle de formation. Chaque étudiant peut suivre un cours différent et ce à son propre rythme.

Inscriptions chez Zenika.

Dans cette formule, un coach guide différents étudiants, en tête à tête, dans la même salle de formation. Chaque étudiant peut suivre un cours différent et ce à son propre rythme.

Tous les étudiants seront dans la même salle, avec un formateur présent afin de les accompagner. C'est une alternative séduisante à la version onLine de l'e-Learning que nous proposons déjà depuis plus d'u an.

Comment cela fonctionne ? Une personne s'enregistre au cours Java pendant qu'une autre s'enregistre au cours Mapping JPA/Hibernate avancé. Ces deux personnes vont vivre une expérience de formation différente, chacune à son propre rythme, avec le formateur pour répondre à toutes les questions.

SCJP 6 Mock Exam Released

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:27:33 GMT

Khalid A Mughal has released the SCJP 6 mock exam from his book A Programmer's Guide to Java SCJP Certification (Third Edition, 2009).

Khalid: "I'm happy to have this mock exam published on JavaBlackBelt and I hope it will help you, not only to learn Java, but also to prepare for the SCJP exam. Good luck!"

We'd like to thank the 5 contributors who have copied Khalid questions on JavaBlackBelt (with Khalid's agreement and under his user profile):Carsten and Michael from Germany, Jiri from the Czech Republic, Mateusz and Mariusz from Poland..

SVN Exams

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

SVN exams have been created by Nico Van Cleemput from Belgium and Łukasz Rżanek form Poland. These exams are waiting for your questions.

Corba Exams

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

A few corba exams have just been created thanks to Martin Heinzl. These 3 exams are waiting for your questions.

Free pass to JAOO conference : 4-9th October 2009

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt is pleased to support JAOO Conference taking place in Aarhus, Denmark from 4-9th October 2009. For our members, JAOO offers a free pass worth € 1,880.- . View the JAOO auction.

JAOO Aarhus is the premier European software conference focused on engaging the hearts and minds of developers.
The event covers a variety of technologies including Enterprise Java, Ajax, Cloud, .NET, Functional Languages, Web 2.0, Architecture & Design, iPhone Application Development, Agility and more.

Full JAOO speaker list.
Full JAOO schedule for the conference

In addition to the main conference (5-7th October), delegates may choose to attend the scheduled additional tutorial days taking place on 4th, 8th and 9th October.

JavaBlackBelt evolves its UI

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT

We are currently deep in the process of rethinking what JavaBlackBelt is about and how it should work. We believe that by making it more useful, user-friendly and smarter, you, the community, will be better served and more engaged. In the spirit of releasing early and often to get your feedback, features from this re-thought JavaBlackBelt - 4.0, for those keeping count - will be introduced regularly over the coming months. The first, very modest, such feature is the new user profile page. Over time, it will become the central place to keep up with JavaBlackBelt activities of interest to you. We've also decided to switch user interface technology. Out with Struts 2 and its page-driven model and JSP rendering, in with Vaadin and its component model and Swing/GWT-like API. Vaadin is a UI framework sort of combines JSF and GWT. It actually uses GWT to render a thin client-side JavaScript application, but tracks the state of the UI on the server side. Though the switch is a big one, the gains are worth it: working in Java all the way down to the client, but without having to worry about the limitations imposed when serializing objects to JavaScript. We'll write more about this technical choice later.

New GWT Exam - Waiting for your questions

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT

A new GWT Basic exam has been set up thanks to Olivier Gérardin. The exam is waiting for your questions.

New Exams for Scala and Grails

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Alternative languages are currently the hottest thing on the JVM, so it's only fitting we should acknowledge them here at JavaBlackBelt, by simultaneously creating exams around two technologies that show just how vibrant the Java platform is.

There's an exam for the statically-typed Scala language, led by Jonhnny Weselly. If you know closures, can tell your map from your fold and compose your classes with traits, we need your questions!

On the dynamic language side, we've got a brand-new Grails exam, led by Mateusz Kwasniewski. If you know how Grails implements MVC and brings Rails-like productivity to standard Java frameworks, we'd be happy to get your questions.

Wanted - Reviewers

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Since a few weeks now, the BlackBelt core team has been busy with creating quality material for learning Java technology. Besides coaches we are also looking for reviewers for the course material. If you are interested in grabbing a few more contribution points feel free to send an email to nicolas {at} java black belt {dot} com to get the access.

Groovy - Basic exam released

Fri, 29 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

The Groovy - Basic exam has been released! It's a great testing tool for those getting started with Groovy, a dynamic language based on Java. The exam covers basic Groovy skills, typically encountered early by those learning Groovy. It's main topics are:

Running Groovy
Fundamental Groovy
Groovy Datatypes
Groovy Control Structures
and Groovy Beans

Think you know Groovy? Find out by taking the exam today!

GeeCON conference and auction

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

We're coming to Cracow, Poland for the GeeCON conference on May 7-8 to run the JavaBlackBelt challenge.

The first ten Belted Community Members to visit us will receive a JavaBlackBelt T-shirt or polo.

One of you can join us for free by participating in the GeeCON Conference Pass auction.

JavaBlackBelt What!?

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

People often tell us that it's quite hard to figure out what JavaBlackBelt is all about.

And our new Coached e-Learning concept is going to add an extra layer to this confusion!

To solve this problem, we were planning to modify JavaBlackBelt website's home page, then we stepped back. Most web applications that we know have two sites.

A "front" site that explains what it is.
The application for registered users.

We decided to take this path too.

Starting today, when you go to www.JavaBlackBelt.com, you will find a new "get to know us" site - a set of multimedia resources explaining what JavaBlackBelt is and how people benefit from it. For existing users, you get to the application site, where you take exam and contribute, by clicking on "the community site" button.

The home page of new site contains a 5-minute video that gives an overview of JavaBlackBelt. Existing users may well discovery aspects of JavaBlackBelt that they can benefit from too, so please check it out.

We hope that our many new visitors to JavaBlackBelt will better understand how it all works and how they can best take advantage of JavaBlackBelt for their specific needs.

Challenge at JSpring

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, your have been many to take the JavaBlackBelt challenge at the JSpring conference (Amsterdam). iProfs hosted us on its booth where Burak (from iProfs) gave a warm welcome to everybody.

Thank you for your participation, it was fun!.

See the pictures

Do developers like eLearning?

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Distant Learning survey results

In December 2008 we conducted a survey about Distant Learning. We are pleased to share the report (PDF) with you, which helped us determine:

How people learn Java
The perceived disadvantages of classical courses and traditional e-learning
The perceived advantages of coached e-learning
Which course elements coached eLearning should offer
Why developers take exams
How many hours a week developers would spend on e-learning
If managers would offer coached e-learning to their developers
If developers think managers would allow them to take coached e-learning

Again, we would like to thank the 130 participants in this survey.

New survey, more points

We are launching our next survey as a follow-on, this time specifically on Coached eLearning.

You can take the new survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=SaH59Fy0TxcZykQKMN_2ftZA_3d_3d. As usual, we will reward your participation to the survey with 10 contribution points per participant.

You'll be able to read our conclusions by the end of April 2009.

Contribute to our new training courses

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

As you may know, JavaBlackBelt has just started a new coached e-learning activity to keep on building better developers. We're going to build and enhance the courses with community involvement, just like we do the exams. The courses are currently are hosted on an external CMS service, so the contribution process will initially be a bit manual.

Find out how to get more contribution points and recognition from the community at http://todos.javablackbelt.com

Interviews from QCon London 2009

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:00:00 GMT

At QCon London 2009, we talked to attendees and exhibitors about the topics that interested them. The result is an interesting overview of what our peers are up to. We've collected the interviews into an album (which is also visible on our homepage). Topics include building communities, using comics to explain technical concepts, twittering and Domain Driven Design, among others. Thanks a lot to the organisers for another great conference!

Managers point of view

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:00:00 GMT

As promised in the previous news, here is the interview of the managers (of professionals having had coached e-learning).

How JavaBlackBelt boosts Java skills

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Here are the interviews of the 3 first professionals having taken a JavaBlackBelt coached e-learning: Patrick, Toan, and Véronique.

We have also interviewed their managers yesterday. To be published soon...

As soon as I catch an unhappy student, I'll interview him to be fair. I hope I won't have to make one unhappy on purpose, in order to have my article ;-)

GIDS 2009 - Free pass in the Auction Room

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Our friends of GIDS 2009 offer 10 entrances for their conference.

5 Passes for GIDS Java Conference on 24th April
5 Passes for GIDS Workshop on 25th April

Great Indian Developer Summit is the biggest gathering of software developers from Java/J2EE, Microsoft computing technologies, Rich Internet Applications (RIA), Web 2.0, Ajax, Agile, SOA, and Enterprise IT. The theme for 2009 is "Tools, Technologies, Tips and Tomfoolery to Beat the Downturn". The speakers include Stephen Forte, Craig Mc Clanahan, Mike Benkovich, Dr. Venkat Subramaniam, Jonas Jacobi and Dr. Jim Webber who will cover topics such as Oslo, C#4.0, T-SQL Tips & Tricks, HTML 5 Communication, Guerrilla SOA, RESTful Apps with RoR & workshops on Programming MS Live Mesh, JRuby, Building Mashups & more.

The partial program (80%), including both sessions and workshops and the outline agenda has been published. Voting is also open until April 3 for the Great Indian Developer Awards; winners will be announced on April 25.

JavaOne 2008 - part 2: big booths

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Visiting the JavaOne pavilion ... sometimes funny, often interesting. In this (late ;-) second part, we visit AMD, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems.

Lukasz Kryger's Interview.

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This is the interview "How JavaBlackBelt Helped my Career" of Lukasz Kryger, taken at QCon London last year. Lukasz was the lucky winner of the free pass offered in the auction room. It may be still time to win yours.

TSS Las Vegas Free Pass

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Our friends (which we warmly thank) from TheServerSide offer a free conference pass (worth $1695) to a member of our community. Participate to this auction and have fun at Las Vegas!

Survey Results

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The results of the 3rd survey are very exciting!

See the summary, video and report.

The results of the two first surveys will be published in the coming weeks.

Thank you for your feedback!

QCon London Free Pass

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:00:00 GMT

As you know, we go to QCon London, March 9-13, and we are happy to offer a free pass to one of you.

Just bid in the auction room.

Vive la France!

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 05:00:00 GMT

(English summary below)

Nous avons eu et allons faire des activités intéressantes avec le très actif Paris JUG.

En Juin 2008, John a animé 2 sessions (en Français) dont vous trouverez les videos au ParisJUG.org

Meilleurs Développeurs
Comment Attirer et Garder les Développeurs

Le ParisJUG a décidé de féliciter sur son site tous les Français ayant passé une ceinture JavaBlackBelt. Notez la congratulation box (traduite) dans la partie droite du site.

JavaBlackBelt donne 15 points de contribution à tous les membres du Paris JUG sur demande au Paris JUG

Finalement, JavaBlackBelt ira festoyer à Paris à l'occasion du premier anniversaire du Paris JUG. A cette occasion, nous ferons une activité learning-community plutot spéciale, que vous pourez déguster on-line.

English summary:

Videos of 2 HR-oriented sessions animated by John are on-line, in French (sorry): Better Developpers, and How to Attract and Keep Developpers.
French new belts are congratulated on ParisJUG.org.
Paris JUG members get 15 contribution points
For the 1st anniversary of ParisJUG, JavaBlackBelt will join the party with a fun-special community-learning activity (video on-line after the event).

U.S. and India

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This week JavaBlackBelt has reached agreement with Boston-based Global Force DIRECT for distribution rights of our enterprise services across North America and India. We believe that this move represents a major milestone for our company and community – we will be well-represented and poised for expansion into two of the world’s largest IT markets!

More about this on our blog and our press release.

Feedback Requested -- Earn 10 Contribution Points in 5 Minutes!

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The mission of JBB is to provide a great learning experience for our members. And we feel that the best place to go for feedback on how we are doing and how we should expand our services is, no doubt, directly to our members. If you have 5 minutes, we invite you to take this 7 question survey. The survey results will be reported in our next newsletter, with the results of the 2 surveys that we conducted in 2008.

PS: As a show of appreciation, we'll credit your account with 10 Contribution Points (at the end of the survey in 2-3 weeks)!

Happy New Year!

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

John posted a 2008 review - 2009 hopes letter on the blog.

And an auction too ;-).

Happy new year to all of you.

HTML and CSS exams objectives

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

A student team from Belgium, has written objectives for an HTML and a CSS exam. Xavier Bouquiaux put them on-line.

HTML
CSS

These exams are not supposed to be basic and they are waiting for your great questions.

QCon London

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt will be at QCon London conference March 11-13, 2009.

We can't exactly tell you yet what activity we'll propose. It might be related to some on-going development (more on this in a few weeks).

If you have a yellow belt or upper on JavaBlackBelt, please come to meet us and be sure to ask for a free T-Shirt.

QCon is an enterprise software development conference to be held in London. Some of the speakers include Tony Hoare (quicksort inventor), Joe Armstrong (father of Erlang), Martin Fowler, Rod Johnson (creator of Spring) and many more.

Survey - 10 points

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Edit: The survey is over. Links are not available anymore.

We are proceding with phase 2 of our Surveys. After the initial one-to-one interviews, we are now launching a quantitative survey, again related to the same two topics:

Should the JavaBlackBelt Community be offered the possibility to contribute financially in order to take exams, as an alternative to paying with contribution points?
Should JavaBlackBelt expand its current services with "Distant Learning" , and how?

We would appreciate your opinion by taking either or both surveys which are available on these URL:

Direct access to Pay for contribution points survey.
Direct access to Distant learning survey.

In return you will earn some contribution points (10 points for each survey).
Of course you can take both survey , once only.

We will share the conclusions of this survey in January 2009.

Pay or Contribute ?

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt has requested the Solvay Business School to surveys the views of our Members.

In particular, we are soliciting your views about the 2 topics:

Should the JavaBlackBelt Community be offered the possibility to contribute financially in order to take exams, as an alternative to paying with contribution points?
Should JavaBlackBelt expand its current services with "Distant Learning" ?

Some of you will be contacted in the coming days to sollicit your views and opinions.

For example, Alexey Filippov, a brown belt and moderator from the Russian Federation has been contacted and blogs about this survey

We do appreciate your participation and will be glad to share the results with you afterwards.

We've open a thread where you are welcome to give us your views.

CVS Exams

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Thomas, from Sydney, prepared objectives for CVS Exams. Mateusz, from Poland/Australia put them online.

There are currently five new exams available:

Do you have a question that every CVS should now the answer for? Share it: author a question!

JavaBlackBelt @ Øredev08

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Nicolas has posted a blog entry with pictures about the JavaBlackBelt journey at Øredev08.

Exam about JavaBlackBelt

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

John, from Belgium, has released a little exam about the usage of JavaBlackBelt platform and about the quality of authored questions.

It should help contributors in their quest for quality:

Voters, to better distinguish good from bad questions
Exam takers, to report problems more often
Question authors, to avoid beginner's mistakes

Do you have an example in mind of typical mistake in questions that you see repeated on this site? Share it: author a question in this new exam!

Packt Auction

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Packt Publishing kindly offers 3 copies of DWR Java AJAX Applications and 3 copies of JDBC 4.0 and Oracle JDeveloper for J2EE Development in the auction room.

That's the second time Packs supports our community this way, and I'm very pleased how responsive they've been for quickly sending the books to the winners the first time.

Join us at Oredev

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 04:00:00 GMT

We go to Sweden, at the Øredev conference (November 17-21) where we will run the JavaBlackBelt challenge.

One of you has the possibility to join us for free!

View the Øredev auction.

Struts 2 basic goes beta

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT

We have enough questions for the Struts2 - Basic exam so that it is now in beta! It needs your votes to get questions released. Take a beta test and vote for questions!

Groovy - Basic already beta!

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT

After just 1 week, we already have enough questions for the Groovy - Basic exam so that it is now in beta! It needs your votes to get questions released. Take a beta exam today!!

New Groovy exam!

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Eric Wendelin has written objectives for the Groovy - Basic exam. Groovy is a dynamic language that for the Java Virtual Machine. It builds upon the strengths of Java and adds powerful features inspired by the likes of Ruby, Python, and SmallTalk. This exam focuses on all of the simple enhancements that Groovy adds to Java which anyone who uses Groovy will need to use. The purpose of the Basic exam is to prepare learners for the truly powerful and dynamic nature of Groovy we will test in the Groovy - Intermediate exam (objectives under construction). Please share your knowledge and contribute to the new Groovy - Basic exam!

New Features

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT

This new version of JavaBlackBelt includes deep changes in the moderation process and in the user interface for contributing to questions.

The goal of these changes is to improve the exams quality. It's easier to contribute. It's easier to move too hard questions to other exams (or to the freezer). Questions have to be "quickly" accepted/released, else they get frozen (average questions don't remain beta forever anymore). It's easy to report copy/paste/execute style questions and tricky questions, which are bad practices.

These changes are essentially visible from the now highly ajaxified "question listing". You can access it from any exam (by listing the beta questions, for example). Most people will face it a the end of their exam in their result page. It will be an ideal time for them to contribute: improve questions, report problems and vote.

Corporate users benefit these changes as well, because now they can contribute to community exams. Corporate users (admins) can also create their own private (intra-company) exams, to which employees of the company can contribute.

Finally, we have fixed a few bugs and introduced a few others ;-)

You are welcome to discuss and ask questions about this new version on the forum.

Friday maintenance

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Friday, October 10, we plan to do some sytsem upgrade. JavaBlackBelt community and corporate web sites might be unavailable during some parts of the day.

EJB3 Intermediate exam

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

The much-certified Benedikt Sattler has created objectives for an EJB3 Intermediate-level exam. It's now ready to receive contributions, so come display your EJB3 expertise and author some questions!

View EJB3 - Intermediate exam objectives.

Seam Basic exam

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Pawel Wrzeszcz and Matthias Merz put their heads together to create the objectives for a Seam exam. Seam fans, come one, come all! Contribute some questions!

View Seam - Basic exam objectives.

JAOO conference pass in the auction room...

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

As you know we go to Denmark September 28 - Oct 3 to JAOO.

You also know that you get 15% discount.

Now you know that one of you has the possibility to go for free :-)

View the JAOO auction.

JavaBlackBelt at Capgemini Java Night

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

On September 17th 2008, Utrecht (NL), Capgemini’s Java community and his partners organize an exciting evening with several sessions that keep you up-to-date on Java technology.

At this occasion Capgemini will present how JavaBlackBelt is being implemented within the company. JavaBlackBelt is not only used for learning Java related technologies, but also as a means to identify and evaluate trainings.

JAOO 2008

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

September 28 - Oct 3, we goe to Denmark at the JAOO conference where he will run the JavaBlackBelt challenge.

As we write this news, we think it could be interesting to put a free JAOO pass (3.286 EUR), in the auction room... we'll come back with another news if we do that.

And if you plan to go to JAOO this year, JavaBlackBelt can get you 15% off.
Just specify the promo code JBBfriends_JAOO2008 when registering on Jaoo web site.

JavaScript exam released

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT

The JavaScript-Basic exam, lead by Abhijit Akhawe from United Kingdom and Amzad Basha from India, is stable now.

You have 30 minutes to answer 20 questions related to the JavaScript programming.

View JavaScript-Basic exam objectives.

JavaZone Norway with UDP

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt will be with UDP at the JavaZone conference, Norway, Sept 17-18.

Our partner in Norway, UDP, kindly invites us to run a JavaBlackBelt challenge at this major European conference.

Be sure to show up in the challenge area, and if you've a yellow belt or better, request a free T-Shirt ;-)

Design Patterns exam released

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Our Design Patterns (GoF) exam, lead by Evgeniy Platonov, is stable now.

You have 42 minutes to answer 28 questions related to different Design Patterns (GoF mainly).
We also announce a competition for the best DP exam logo. The winner will be awarded a book. Look for details here

View Design Patterns (GoF) exam objectives.

e-Meeting Aug 28, Thursday

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Join the the next JavaBlackBelt e-meeting Thursday 28th; 14:00 GMT-UTC (7:00 California, 10:00 New York, 15:00 London, 16:00 Brussels, 19:30 India), to share your opinion and get the last news about upcoming activities.

To participate this e-meeting, just follow this link on Thursday to start our new conferencing system.

What do you need to prepare ?

If you plan to speak, a head set with a microphone is better than loudspeakers (to avoid echo).
For those who don't like to speak in English, the system has a written chat.
Please have a picture on your JavaBlackBelt account (that will be transferred to the conferencing system).
You may test your configuration (Java, sound and microphone) with this link.
Have a look at the recent forum threads, to get an idea of subjects we might discuss
Don't hesitate to post things you'd like to discuss in this thread.

During this meeting we'll demonstrate some features of our next big great release ;-)

We'll open the meeting 30min before the starting time, to enable everybody test and get used to the conferencing system.

We look forward to meet many of you again.

QCon San Francisco

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt will be at QCon San Francisco conference Nov 17-21, 2008.

Nicolas Brasseur will animate the hibernate tutorial Tuesday AM.

Then, during the conference part, we'll run the JavaBlackBelt challenge as we do at many conferences.
If you have a yellow belt or upper on JavaBlackBelt, please come to meet us and be sure to ask for a free T-Shirt.

About QCon:
This second annual San Francisco enterprise software development conference designed for team leads, architects and project management is back!
There is no other event in the US with similar opportunities for learning, networking, and tracking innovation occurring in the Java, .NET, Ruby, SOA, Agile, and architecture communities.
Speakers include: Rod Johnson, Martin Fowler, Kent Beck and many more.

JavaBlackBelt users get $50 additional discount on tickets! Just mention "javablackbelt_50off" as promotion code when register on the QCon website.

e-Meeting Saturday 9th

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Join the the next JavaBlackBelt e-meeting Saturday August 9th; 12:00 GMT-UTC (8:00 New York, 13:00 London, 14:00 Brussels, 17:30 India), to share your opinion and get the last news about upcoming activities.

The previous e-meeting was held in May.

To participate this e-meeting, just follow this link on Saturday to start our new conferencing system.

What do you need to prepare ?

If you plan to speak, a head set with a microphone is better than loudspeakers (to avoid echo).
For those who hate to speak in English, the system has a written chat.
Please have a picture on your JavaBlackBelt account (that will be transferred to the conferencing system).
Have a look at the recent forum threads, to get an idea of subjects we might discuss
Don't hesitate to post things you'd like to discuss in this thread.

We'll open the meeting 30min before the starting time, to enable everybody test and get used to the conferencing system.

We look forward to meet many of you again.

XPath exam

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Sylvain Benoist and Steve Turner, two XML specialists from London, created objectives for an XPath v1 exam.

The exam covers XPath version 1. Now we need to fill it with questions. We would appreciate your valuable contribution.

View XPath v1 exam objectives.

JavaRebel

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:00:00 GMT

JavaRebel offers permanent licenses to all JavaBlackBelt's brown belts, plus some at conferences and in the auction room.

JavaRebel is a JVM plugin (-javaagent) that enables to reload changes made to Java class files on-the-fly, saving developers the time that it takes to redeploy an application or perform a container restart. It is a generic solution that works for Java EE and Java standalone applications.

If you are a brown belt, send a mail to support --att-- zeroturnaround dot com, with a link to your JavaBlackBelt's profile page, and your full name.

Else you are welcome to visit JavaBlackBelt's booth at JavaZone (Norway, September 17) and JAOO (Denmark, September 28th) conferences, where challenge winners will also get a license.

If you are not a brown belt, and you cannot come to these conferences, please visit the auction room, it contains one license for July, another for August, and a final for September.

Good luck!

Struts 2 - Basic

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Meissa Sako created objectives for a Struts 2 - Basic exam. This new exam is waiting for your new questions!

View Struts 2 - Basic exam objectives.

jQuery Basic exam

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Valentin Crettaz has crafted an excellent set of objectives to test your knowledge of jQuery. Take a look at the exam -- and all you Ajax gurus, crank up your brain and create some questions!

View jQuery Basic exam objectives.

Packt Auction

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Packt Publishing kindly offers 2 copies of Swing Extreme Testing and 3 copies of EJB 3 Developer Guide in the auction room.

5000 points for New-York Jeanne!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Jeanne Boyarsky, a developer for a bank in New York City, got her 5000th contribution point today!

She is a volunteer moderator at JavaRanch and JavaBlackBelt. 3 years ago, we were very lucky to be contacted by Jeanne and since, we've been amazed by her expertise and her kindness.

Congratulations, and THANK YOU, Jeanne!

Finalist and JavaBlackBelt at RubyEnRails

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Finalist invited JavaBlackBelt to hold its JBB Challenge at RubyEnRails.

Random questions were taken from our successful Ruby exam.

We congratulate our top three winners: Obie Fernandez (left on picture) , Jan De Poorter, en Tom-Eric Gerritsen. More pictures of the event can be seen here.

Capgemini and JavaBlackBelt at SpringOne

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Capgemini invited JavaBlackBelt to hold its JBB Challenge at SpringOne.

Many participants queued to take 5 questions from our Spring Basic exam

We congratulate our top three winners on June 11th : Alexey Gopachenko, Nicolas De Loof, and Maarten Bosteels, and on June 12th: (see picture) Dominique Devriese (middle), Rune Flobakk (right), and Bruno Colin (left).
Thanks also to our sponsor Pearson Education Benelux

Ruby

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt goes at RubyEnRails 2008 (NL) for a first Ruby challenge.

SpringOne

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT

This week, we'll also be at SpringOne, for a Spring challenge ;-)

JavaBlackBelt @ ParisJUG

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT

June 12, John Rizzo from JavaBlackBelt will present a seminar "Better Developers" for the Paris JUG.

We'll talk about smart developers, retention, recruitment, education,... competency management.

It's free and (this time,) it's in French.

e-Meeting Notes

Tue, 27 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, 10-15 contributors joined an e-meeting discussion about "contributing for JavaBlackBelt". after meeting notes, a scrum board, and a task detail page are available.

Contributors on-line meeting.

Tue, 20 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Hi, Dear JavaBlackBelt administrators, moderators and contributors.

Our community has made it's way nicely these last couple of years.
You have your big part of responsibility in this great success.
JBB is based on the concept of contributor (every user is a potential contributor to the content).
Very quickly in the history of JBB we introduced the concept of moderators.
Later, some administrators came to help the moderators.

Today, I'd like to organize our activities a more "project oriented way".

By activities, I mostly mean producing quality content and helping others doing so.

By project oriented way, I suggest iterations with a scrum board and regular meetings. I also propose to work less on a "role" basis (an administrator assigned to a role, for example), and more on a "story/task" basis. That way you can switch from one kind of activity to another, and also slow down / speed up as your available volonteer time changes.

I'd like to organize our first on-line meeting next Monday, May 26, at 19h - Brussels time (it should be 9h AM in California and 22h30 in India; check timezones on ZebraMap.com).

Should you want to participate, I propose you to send a mail to JavaBlackBelt dot admin at gmail dot com with your skype ID (you'll need skype installed).

For those not being able to take part to the meeting but wanting to contribute or just being curious, I'll post a some notes after the meeting.

See you!

John Rizzo.
Skype: johnrizzo-jbb

JavaOne 2008 - part 1: small booths

Mon, 19 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Visiting the JavaOne pavilion ... sometimes funny, often interesting.

The article is on our blog.

TheServerSide free conference pass!

Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

At JavaOne last week, when we've met our friends from TheServerSide.com, we asked: "may we have a free pass to your conference in Prague, for one of our community member?".

Yes!

TheServerSide / TechTarget is happy to offer a free ($1.895 worth) pass to the conference in the auction room.

Take a peek Inside JavaBlackBelt!

Wed, 07 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

We've started a blog! It's called Inside JavaBlackBelt and we'll use it to talk about our daily programming joys, ideas, hopes and fears, the weird bugs we face and share some platform tips 'n' tricks.

At the moment, we have posts about a mysterious Tomcat memory leak and a collision between JUnit and auto-boxing. Please have a look, comment and suggest ideas!

JavaBlackBelt at J-Spring 2008

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt was invited by QNH to hold its Challenge at J-Spring this last April 16th. Several participants enjoyed discovering the breadth and depth of our questions.

Congratulations to Jeroen Wijdemans who won a book offered by Pearson. The two contenders, Wally Van Doorenmaelen and Constantijn Visinescu, won a nice JBB polo shirt.

Click on the title to see the slideshow and the videos!

Java 3D exam

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Benedikt Sattler created new Java 3D - basic exam.

The exam covers the basics both mathematical and programmatic of Java 3D. Now we need to fill it with questions. We would appreciate your valuable contribution.

View Java 3D - basic exam objectives.

Question Listing

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

We may enhance and unify question lists in JavaBlackBelt. Your feedback is welcome.

JAX-B exam needs questions.

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Benedikt Sattler created new JAX-B exam.

The exam covers JAXB issues like Java-Schema or Schema-Java mapping. Now we need to fill it with questions. We would appreciate your valuable contribution.

View JAXB exam objectives.

C# exams

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Hell, C# exams (basic and intermed) on JavaBlackBelt!?

Bah, we are IT developers before being Java technologists, aren't we ? Most of us have programmed in more than one language. Personally, I started with "Basic", on my vintage Atari 800 XL and went through many others since. Couldn't we consider SQL or Ant, which are on JavaBlackBelt, as "languages" too ? We introduced a Ruby exam last year.

Let's welcome these two C# exams and help them grow. If .Net exams multiply and invade JavaBlackBelt, we promise to capture them and transfer them to a place where they can happily prosper.

JBB at QCon

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT

QCon Conference this 12-14 March 2008 was a great opportunity to meet with JBB Community members and JBB Corporate users.

We thank you for your input and feedback.

Many participated to the JBB Challenge. Pictures are available here.

The top 6 JBB Challengers received a Java book donated by O'Reilly - another 18 high scoring challengers won a JBB polo shirt.

No Contributions Required up to Green Belt ?

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

We currently discuss our next development: proposing a contribution-points-free sequence of exams up to the green belt.

This means that unexperienced users would not have to contribute anymore, and it would raise the quality level of beta exams.

View the proposal

Discuss it

JavaBlackBelt.com/forum

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

We migrate to a new forum facility: JavaBlackBelt.com/forum.

One month ago, Javalobby changed (in a rush, apparently ;-) their forum to a new system and progressively disabled the ancient forum area where we were located.

We had plans to integrate a forum functionality into the platform (as being able to discuss a belt congratulation, a news, an auction,...), but we had to hurry up and Aymeric did a fast work integrating (minimal integration) JForum that you can use with your JavaBlackBelt login.

Don't hesitate to discuss this news on our new forum ;-)

First JavaBlackBelt Pizza Meeting at Capgemini a great success

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Capgemini held its first Pizza Meeting to launch JavaBlackBelt Corporate Edition. The Core Team of 12 developers took exams in a plenum session on February 21st. The session was introduced by JBB co-founder Nicolas Brasseur.
Some core members were JBB community members who had already achieved belts before the session, others took their first JBB exam that evening.

I like the JBB web site: It is fun, it allows developers to improve knowledge, and the possibility to gain a result quickly is a motivation to go further” says the first Capgemini brown belt, who received a bottle of champain for his achievement.

JBB allows Capgemini to improve the hard skills of our java developers and architects. We decided to implement JBB because it offers plenty of possibilities for e-learning and skills assessment." Steven Eggenstein, Java Competence Manager, Capgemini

QCon free conference pass!

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

QCon is happy to offer a free pass to the conference in the auction room.

As you know, we'll be the official contest of QCon London, March 12-14. One 2.646€ worth conference pass is offered to the JavaBlackBelt community. Place your bids in the auction room.

Algo - basic exam released

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Our Algo - basic exam, lead by John Rizzo, is stable now.

You have more than half an hour to answer 24 questions related to the fundamentals of Algorithms.
And seriously, shouldn't every blue belt have it in its succeed exams list?

View Algo - basic exam objectives.

JavaBlackBelt at QCon

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt will be at QCon London conference March 12-14, 2008.

We'll run the JavaBlackBelt challenge as we do at many conferences, followed by a competition (with winners of the challenge).

If you have a yellow belt or upper on JavaBlackBelt, please come to meet us and be sure to ask for a free T-Shirt.

QCon is an enterprise software development conference to be held in London. It is designed with the technical depth and enterprise focus of interest to technical team leads, architects, and project managers. Some of the speakers include Martin Fowler, Erich Gamma, Kent Beck, eBay Architect Randy Shoup, Neal Gafter, Gregor Hophe, Brian Goetz, and many more.

JavaBlackBelt users get 15% discount on tickets! Just mention "javablackbelt" as promotion code when register on the QCon website.

'OSGI basic' exam needs your questions

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Toni Menzel created new OSGI basic exam.

The latter exam covers basic OSGI-related issues. No advanced topics - an ideal point to start your adventure with this OSGI. Now we need to fill it with questions. We would appreciate your valuable contribution.

View OSGI basic exam objectives.

The first JavaScript exam on JavaBlackBelt

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Abhijit Akhawe created a brand new JavaScript basic exam.

This new exam is the first one concerning the JavaScript topic. Now we need to fill it with your brilliant questions. We would appreciate your valuable contributions.

View JavaScript basic exam objectives.

Lead The Exam!

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Exam Leader Rotation

We welcome moderators to (re)select the exams they want to lead.

The idea is to allow people to switch exams and minimize the number of inactive moderators. If you are busy for a while, you can ask for exams later in the cycle or in the next cycle. The idea is to make sure we have active moderators and solicit other moderators for exams that need more.

We believe in giving equal opportunity to all the moderators for selection of the exams according to their time availability and likings.

If you think you have guts, knowledge and can can lead the exam please do not hesitate to request for becoming exam leader.

Please visit Exam Leader Rotation thread for more information.

10 New Auctions

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

10 new auctions wait for your bids in the auction room. They will appear from now to end of March.

We propose various kind of gifts this time, from the toy to the dvds. Don't hesitate to start a forum thread with your wish list for the next gifts :-)

Good luck !

JavaBlackBelt group at LinkedIn

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

We've created a JavaBlackBelt group at LinkedIn.com for blue, brown and soon black belts.

From LinkedIn group page, press the join button to be invited joining this group. In the message, put a link to your JavaBlackBelt profile (on JavaBlackBelt.com), so we can check your belt color.

10,000 contribution points !

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Congratulation Amzad Basha, for reaching 10,000 contribution points! You are the first achieving this and it's an energy start for 2008.

This year, the contribution points counting will change, with the introduction of additional contribution measures. More on this on the forum soon.

JDO exam is coming

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Benedikt Sattler, a brown belt from Austria created JDO exam.

New exam includes questions concerning the JDO persistance framework issues. Now we need your contribution in order to shift the exam into the beta state.

View JDO exam objectives.

JavaPolis Challenge Results

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The JavaBlackBelt team wishes to thank the numerous visits and support at our JavaPolis events in December. Some pictures are available on our picasa web album, more pictures will follow shortly.

Our congratulations go to the winners of the JBB Championship. Mert Caliskan, Bob MacWhirter, and Marcin Kuthan were our Champions respectively on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week. They won our top price: a PlayStation3, donated jointly with our partners CapGemini and USG Innotiv.

Impressive performance also by the runner-ups: Jan Kovar, Laurent Pireyn, and Xavier Fournet, who could choose their preferred Java book, graciously donated by Pearson Education.

We also wish to thank Sony for sponsoring this event.

Meanwhile, on behalf of your entire JavaBlackbelt team, our very best wishes for a sparkling 2008.

New year auction

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 05:00:00 GMT

A $100 auction for new year is waiting for you in the auction room.

Happy new year and thank you so much for your terrific contributions!

View the Auction item.

XML Schema exam created

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Morten Lauritsen Khodabocus, a blue belt from Switzerland created XML W3C Schema exam.

New exam includes 20 questions concerning the XML Schema issues. Now we need your contribution in order to traverse the exam into the beta state.

View XML Schema exam objectives.

JavaBlackBelt hosted by Cap Gemini & USG Innotiv @ Javapolis 2007

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Our friends and business partners from Cap Gemini and USG Innotiv ICT kindly proposed to welcome us on their respective booths for running the JavaBlackBelt contest @ JavaPolis 2007.
Our partnership was officially announced in the last JavaPolis newsletter.
T-Shirts & other goodies will be given to Green-Blue-Brown-BlackBelt members ...

In the brain of John Rizzo - by Skillsmatter - London, Novembre 26th

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Join John Rizzo, the founder of JavaBlackBelt as he explains the internals of the JavaBlackBelt.com platform, including the strategic technical choices made and their evolutions from inception to v3 and the main technical problems faced in making these choices.

For further info & registration click here

'Servlet intermediate' exam has been released

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Arpan Rajani and Bharat Sunil Varma, brown and blue belts from India released Servlet - Intermed exam.

New exam includes 16 questions concerning various Servlets-related issues such as request filters, cookies or session life cycle.

View Servlet - Intermed exam objectives.

Our first UML exam is ready

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Our UML exam, lead by Amzad Basha and Piotr Kowalski, is stable now.

Exam temporarily offline due to problem finding images. You have got almost 25 minutes to answer 16 questions related to the fundamentals of the Unified Modeling Language.

View UML for Java - Basic exam objectives.

'Java 5 New Tools and Tool Features' exam has been relased

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Thomas Schroeder, from Australia released Java 5 New Tools and Tool Features exam.

To pass the new exam you have to answer 8 from the 10 questions concerning new Java 5 (alias Tiger) tools enhances.

View Java 5 New Tools and Tool Features exam objectives.

'XML DTD' ready to go

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Morten Lauritsen Khodabocus, a blue belt from Switzerland released XML DTD exam.

New exam includes 15 questions concerning the XML DTD issues.

View XML DTD exam objectives.

'JSP intermediate' exam is stable now

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Amzad Basha and Bharat Sunil Varma, brown and blue belts from India released JSP - Intermed exam.

New exam includes 20 questions concerning JSP.

We want to say 'thank you' to Amzad and Bharat due to their moderation effort.

View JSP - Intermed exam objectives.

Pulse, an electrifying IT evening - by USG Innotiv ICT - Brussels, November 14th

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 04:00:00 GMT

John Rizzo JavaBlackBelt founder will explain the strategic technical choices made and their evolution, from inception to v3 and the main technical problems faced.
This presentation is very specific about product experience and problems/solutions. It contains deep technical insights and aspects of architecture and project life/management. You will be able to apply their experience in your current or future Java project.
For further info & registration: Click here ...

In the brain of John Rizzo - by Skillsmatter - London, October 29th

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 04:00:00 GMT

J-Fall '07

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Javablackbelt was at J-Fall in the Netherlands this October 11th '07.

Several contenders participated to the JBB Challenge, with exciting prices for the winners.
A prototype of our upcoming V.3 was very well received by our community members. We thank our Dutch partner Finalist for coordinating this successful NL-JUG event.

Methodology exams !?

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 04:00:00 GMT

I would not dear to pretend that we are finished up creating technology exams that pertains to Java developers. There are so many Java related technologies, that we could triple our list … but we’ve filled much of the gap.

Now that work is done, I see a demand for higher level exams:

architecture
methodology

But I’ve to admit that I just don’t see how to do that on JavaBlackBelt now.

Architecture

What would you ask about architecture? You’d probably have to torture me before making a JavaBlackBelt exam advocating the use of J2EE/EJB (v2).

Would you ask to enumerate/recognize the patterns proposed by Martin Fowler in its book Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture.

? I’m not sure Martin would love the idea.

Methodology

What would you ask about methodology? Enumerate the official values of eXtreme Programming? Recognize that Scrum is heaven and waterfall is hell?

The problem with methodology and architecture is that ... it depends on the context. What works for a team/project would not be suitable for another. It is rarely black or white.

Do you imagine a multiple choice question describing a team and project, then asking to select the best option for that situation? Any question of that kind that I’ve seen is poor, is not scientific, is debatable.

I understand that declaring a person is a good architect or project manager, must be done by a human. But, I feel that we can (and don’t know how) help solving part of this evaluation on JavaBlackBelt, a scalable way.

I was discussing the matter at JAOO with Michael Feathers. A was a little bit drunk (it was just after my interview with Juggy...) but I can remember his clever suggestion: what about asking community members to (manually through mails and interview) assess other community members on-line.
It is certainly a way to explore, a little bit as LinkedIn where you recommend somebody because you know him/her.

It someway hits my initial idea of having brown belts needing to find black belts to promote them to black.

We have much to think before we get a nice solution.
What do you think ?

Post your comments on this thread

JUnit 4 exam released

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Julio Cesar Damasceno from Brazil and Jeanne Boyarsky from the United States released JUnit 4 exam.

The new exam focuses on changes between JUnit 3.8 and 4.X.

View JUnit 4 exam objectives.

JavaBlackBelt Confluence Plugin

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Hilbert Schraal, a green belt from The Netherlands, has written a JavaBlackBelt plugin for Confluence.

Today, I released a plugin for Confluence that shows the status of one or more users of JavaBlackBelt.

Confluence is an enterprise WIKI that is highly extensible by using plugins. To get an idea of how these plugins are built, I made one myself. I happened to be playing around with JavaBlackBelt, so I decided to use that as an example. The goal was to have my JavaBlackBelt status (in the form of an image of a (karate/judo) belt) displayed dynamically in Confluence.

After some browsing through examples I found out that all I had to do was implement the Macro interface. Implementing the hasBody(), getBodyRenderMode() and isInline() methods was a piece of cake. The harder work was with the execute() method. What this method does is generate the HTML that shows what you want to show using the macro. Luckily the guys from JavaBlackBelt already built a javascript library that I could use. Therefore, most of the work was in parsing the parameters of the macro and having a decent error handling mechanism in place. The resulting code shows this.

Read the full article .

JAOO definition of "good".

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 04:00:00 GMT

I've hit JAOO in Denmark, last week.

We’ve run the JavaBlackBelt Challenge. Participants sit down, click, and get 5 random questions that they answer as fast as possible. In fact, this challenge runs alone now... as more and more people know it. This gave me more time for attending the sessions, and I’ve been quite happy with what I heard.

JAOO is one of my favorite conferences because it does not focus on technology only. It focuses on developers, on people, on teams.

One of the main messages I’ve heard from big guys like Martin Fowler, Erik Meijer (Microsoft :-) and Robert Martin is: focus on simplicity and quality.

Focus on simplicity: don’t over-architect. Silver bullets usually fail. Do the simplest (elegant) thing that works. It doesn’t matter if you’ve to change it later when more needs come (in a further iteration).

Focus on quality: look at and think about your code twice. Use test driven development or other activity if it can help you to focus on that. Are your proud of it? If your are proud of it because it’s a complex thing that only a genius (you) can understand, then throw it away.

Robert Martin gave a wise definition of "good" code: the code reads such a way that every line of code is what you expected to be.

Really, clever guys are the ones who make it simple!

John Rizzo.

Picture: Christian Gasser (right), our Danish JavaBlackBelt member having won a free pass to the conference through the auction system, with me (left).
See the web Album.

Inside JavaBlackBelt

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 04:00:00 GMT

I’m preparing a presentation “Inside JavaBlackBelt” explaining the internals of the platform.

I’ll give this presentation for the first time at the JAOO conference next week in Denmark.

October 29th, our partner SkillsMatter organizes a free session of the same presentation in London.

Should you come to any of these sessions; please let me know in advance so I can take a few extra gifts with me (my mail address is my first name at JavaBlackBelt.com).

I plan to publish a few articles extending the presentation, this year and maybe a video of one of the sessions.

John.

Look at this ... JavaBlackBelt v3 !

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 04:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt V3 is available for preview on our test server.

The V3 includes new features such as ...

New Design (xhtml compliant)
Ajax features (Question pre-loading in exams, instant question rating and comments,...)
Improved usability
...

Some functionalities are still under development and the design revamp as not been done on every page yet.

But we'd appreciate feed backs on completed features such as the home page, the exam pages, the forms in general, the whole functional behavior (we did a tremendous back-end refactoring) and mainly the AJAXED questionnaires.
I would really like to have a feedback from Safari (We did test on Safari, but just on windows) and Opera users.
Please report any stuffs related to this preview at aymeric [a.t> javablackbelt / dot / com (not on JIRA please)

The final version is coming soon...

'JSF 1.1 - Basic' exam stable already

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Amzad Basha (a brown belt from India) together with Piotr Kowalski (also brown belt, from Poland) released JSF 1.1 - Basic exam.

New exam includes 24 questions concerning JSF web framework version 1.1.

Special thanks go to Piotr not only due to his moderation effort but also because he is the most prominent contributor for this exam.

View JSF 1.1 - Basic exam objectives.

Leave a Testimonal

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 04:00:00 GMT

We've created a page to gather testimonials from the Community about JavaBlackBelt.

It's rudimentary for the moment, but it's a start.

You may send your testimonial to javablackbelt dot admin at sign gmail then dot com and we'll bring them to the page.
Moderators can edit the page and add their words directly.

'Algorithms - Basic' exam goes beta

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

'Algorithms - Basic' exam coordinated by

John Rizzo is finally mature enough to change its status to beta.

New exam includes more than 20 questions concerning fundamental algorithmic topics such as basic data structures, sorting, trees or recursion. Special thanks go to Alejandro Tkachuk, the most active contributor of this exam.

View Algorithms - Basic exam objectives.

New 'Spring - Velocity integration' exam

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

New 'Spring - Velocity integration' exam has been released by brown belt Henryk Konsek (from Poland).

New exam includes questions connected with the topic of Spring integration with the Velocity template engine as an alternative view layer for the Spring MVC technology. Now exam needs to be filled with the questions - we will appreciate your valuable contribution.

View Spring - Velocity integration exam objectives.

JAOO conference pass in the auction room...

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

As you know we go to Denmark September 23-28 to JAOO.

You also know that you get 15% discount.

Now you know that you have one possibility to go for free :-)

View the JAOO auction.

Photo Albums

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

We've participated to a few conferences now (usually invited, thank to all these conferences organizers!): JavaPolis 2004, TheServerSide 2005, JAOO 2006, J-Fall 2006, JavaPolis 2006, Q-Con 2007, Sun Tech Days 2007, J-Spring 2007, Jazoon 2007, TheServerSide 2007.

If you organize a conference and would like JavaBlackBelt to join, drop us a mail.

View JavaBlackBelt Picasa web albums

'Struts 1 - Intermed' exam is stable already

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Amzad Basha, a brown belt from India released Struts 1 - Intermed exam.

New exam includes 15 questions concerning Apache Struts MVC framework. Please everybody say 'thank you' to Amzad not only due to his moderation effort but also because he is the most prominent contributor for this exam.

View Struts 1 - Intermed exam objectives.

Java 5 New Base Library Features exam released

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Thomas Schroeder, from Australia released Java 5 New Base Library Features exam.

New exam includes 20 questions concerning such Tiger's issues as JMX, enhanced concurrency utilities, new security features and many others.

View Java 5 New Base Library Features exam objectives.

JavaBlackBelt at JAOO 2007

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

September 23-28, I go to Denmark again at the JAOO conference doing 2 things I enjoy:

running the JavaBlackBelt challenge
give a new technical presentation

Obviously, I won't miss the great JAOO technical sessions ... which are not all so technical. I must admit I like the methodology sessions also ;-)

As I write this news, I think it could be interesting to run an on-line competition with a free JAOO pass (3.202EUR), or to put it in the auction room... I'll come back with another news if we do that.

John Rizzo.

Black belt is approaching

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Java SE Core - Intermed - Programming exam has been created. This exam is required to get a black belt. Once the exam will be released, the black belt will be available (yes, we plan to unlock the black belt in near future).

This Java SE exam is no multiple choice test. You didn't think about becoming a black belt without programming, did you ?

Your valuable contribution is welcome - we need to fill the exam with quality tasks.

View Java SE Core - Intermed - Programming exam objectives.

Swing LayoutManager

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Brown belt and moderator Chinh Nguyen published objectives for a Swing LayoutManager exam.

That's the first non-basic Swing exam (apart of the JGoodies exams).
Volunteers are welcome to write objectives for the next possible Swing exams: Table, Tree, EDT (EventDispatcher / Threading,...), Input (mouse, keyboard, focus,...), Graphs.

The Swing LayoutManager exam is waiting for your questions...

View Swing LayoutManager exam objectives.

Spring MVC exam refactored

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Henryk Konsek refactored the Spring MVC exam.

View the new Spring MVC

Design Pattern exam goes beta

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Evgeniy Platonov has set the (GoF) Design Patterns exam "Beta".

You've been damn fast contributing on this one!

Take the Design Patterns exam.

8.000+ contribution points.

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Velocity - Basic exam

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Henryk Konsek (him again...) published objectives for a Velocity - Basic exam.

... and I've put some bonus factor on it for your contribution points.

View Velocity - Basic exam objectives.

New Admins

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Welcome to our Admin Team! When you need an admin e-mail javablackbelt.admin AT gmail DOT com and one of us will get back to you. The team is Ahmed, Arpan, HenryK, Amzad and Jeanne.

USG Innotiv - 4 brown belts.

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Nicolas and John visited a corporate customer from Belgium this week: USG Innotiv.

This consultancy company started using JavaBlackBelt Corporate edition 3 months ago. This week they invited their developers having at least a yellow belt, to a little party. They were 12, including 4 brown belts (yes, already 4 brown belts in 3 months).

We got a lot of interesting feedback in this party, and one bottle of champaign offered by the company for each succeeded brown belt.

Congratulations to these 4 guys (who will remain anonymous in this news, for protecting the privacy of this customer).
On the picture, from left to right: John Rizzo from JavaBlackBelt, brown1, brown2, brown3, brown4, Nicolas Brasseur from JavaBlackBelt.

Spring Transactions exam

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Henryk Konsek published objectives for a Spring Transactions exam.

It's waiting for your questions...

View Spring Transactions exam objectives.

TheServerSide Java Symposium

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Mwanji, from our team, has been invited by TheServerSide team to their Java Symposium at Barcelona.

The ServerSide Java Symposium 2007 in Barcelona got off to an excellent start with Martin Fowler and Neal Ford's keynote on "Language-Oriented Programming and Language Workbenches." Some of the central elements of the talk were Domain Specific Languages, closures and the Fluent Interface idea. Used together, these can lead to more human-readable code and a more sophisticated modelling system than the tree hierarchies we're used to, especially in dynamically typed languages like Ruby. You can read more about it on Fowler's website.

Our stand was between Sun's and Google's, impressive company to say the least! The first Challenge we ran was a Java 5 test, but a lot of people told me they hadn't worked in Java 5, so on the following days, we switched to a Java 1.4 Challenge. This trend was confirmed during Eugene Ciurana's talk on "Architecting For The Future." He asked who was using Java 6 in production. I think two out of over 100 people raised their hands. A lot of people weren't even in Java 5 yet. A couple of very ashamed developers admitted to still working with Java 1.3.

Several prize draws were held in the Main Ballroom, and a funny tradition was created: every single time, the first person drawn at random wasn't in the room, someone else had to be drawn. I could only imagine how their facial expression changed when someone informed them: "Hey, you won a PlayStation 3! But then you lost it!"
Thanks to Mark, Kelli, Nitin, Katie and Ashley at TechTarget/TSS for putting on a really informative and enjoyable conference! Thanks to everyone who took the challenge and got interested by the JBB concept and technology. We handed out a lot of t-shirts, so if you see us at a conference, don't hesitate to step up!

Mwanji Ezana.

The first picture on the left is Mwanji Ezana, from JavaBlackBelt.
The second picture is Mateusz Kwasniewski, who won a free pass to the conference on JavaBlackBelt on-line competition, a few weeks ago.

	More pictures on Picasa .
	Attendee Experiences .
	Resources from the symposium .

Algorithms - Basic

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Jazoon

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Patricia and Aymeric are back from the Jazoon conference (Zurich) where they talked to many of you. Thank you for having made JavaBlackBelt a nice success there. The first picture on the left, are concentrated participants taking the Challenge.

The second picture is Neal Gafter taking the test.

The bottom picture shows some winners. From let to right: Felipe Gaucho, Julio Faerman, Perica Milosevic, Nikola Postolov.

More pictures on Flickr .

UML for Java - Basic exam goes Beta

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Our UML exam, lead by Amzad Basha, quickly got many questions.

It's beta now. Special thanks to the brown belt Henryk Konsek (left picture) and the green belt Andrea Vega (right picture), the most prolific contributors on this exam.

View UML for Java - Basic exam objectives.

Java SE NIO exam released

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Piotr Kowalski, from Poland, and Amzad Basha, from India, released both Java SE NIO exam.

You'll be asked 14 questions about buffers, channels and selectors. You need 80% to succeed (-> you cannot miss more than 3 questions).

Good luck!

View Java SE NIO exam objectives.

Develop JavaBlackBelt.com

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Wanna develop the JavaBlackBelt platform with us?

Get the privilege to work closely with Aymeric and Nicolas, on a growing world-class project (Belgium - Brussels).

Much agility, technology and visibility guaranteed.

You need some of these skills: Html/CSS, Servlet/JSP/Struts2, Spring2, Hibernate3, Linux/Tomcat/Postgres admin, Ajax,...

But most of all, you'll need to be passionate and smart.

English or French speaking. This is a full-time position.

Don't be shy; just drop a mail to Aymeric and to Nicolas (at JavaBlackBelt dot com).

Concurrency Exams

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Evgeniy Platonov, from Ukraine released both Java SE Concurrency - High-Level and Low-Level exams.

These exams feature the concurrency API new to Java 5.
Take them, show your mastery of multi-thread programming, and get more points for your belt.

	View Java SE Concurrency - High-Level exam objectives.
	View Java SE Concurrency - Low-Level exam objectives.

The Server Side - on-line competition.

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

The Server Side Java Symposium on-line competition will run Thursday, June 7th, at 16:00 (Barcelona time, 14:00 GMT).
Win a free conference pass (1.895€)!

JBB @ J-Spring

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

We'll be at J-Spring, organised by the Netherlands Java User Group, 13 June in 't Spant - Bussum, Netherlands. Co-founder John Rizzo will give a tech talk on Spring.
Come by our stand to take the JavaBlackBelt Challenge and win a cool T-shirt or book -- if you place first ;-)
We look forward to seeing you there!

Jazoon Competition - 1 free pass.

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

June 6th, at 16:00 (Zurich time, 14:00 GMT), we run the conference on-line competition.
1st prize: 1245€ worth Jazoon conference pass (June 24-28, Zurich).

JavaBlackBelt WikiCourse: we need your feedback!

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

We've reached a milestone in the effort of building and distributing courses through the JavaBlackBelt portal. A huge "Thanks!" to the development team for their committment to achieving this.
The Beta version of the wikiCourse part is now available. (The first courses is under construction.) Basically we tried to apply the same principle as we have done with exams but as a course. that means anybody can propose enhancements to the course content.
In the coming months we'll enhance this platform to integrate features focused on interaction between course attendees and instructors: forum, chat, videoconf, ... The first (available) course can be accessed now...

JavaBlackBelt goes to Spain!

Tue, 29 May 2007 04:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt will be at the 2nd annual ServerSide Java Symposium-Europe held in Barcelona, June 27-29.
We'll offer the JavaBlackBelt Challenge.
If you're at the conference, be sure to stop by our stand (and take the Challenge!) We look forward to meeting you.

Moderators wanted

Mon, 28 May 2007 04:00:00 GMT

If anyone is interested in moderatoring an exam on one of the following topics, please let Jeanne know or post on JavaLobby.

Topics: Hibernate, JGoodies, Eclipse RCP, Java IO/NIO, EJB Intermediate, UML

Java Specialists Newsletter

Sat, 26 May 2007 04:00:00 GMT

At the Sun Tech Days in London (March 2007), we met Java Champion, Heinz Kabutz. He was kind enough to mention us in the latest newsletter...

JavaBlackBelt goes to Switzerland!

Thu, 24 May 2007 04:00:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt will be at the 1st annual Jazoon conference held in Zurich, June 24-28.
We've been invited to run our new competition, The Java Race. (More details will be posted soon...) We'll also offer our popular JavaBlackBelt Challenge.
If you're there be sure to stop by our booth, we'd be pleased to meet you!

JavaBlackBelt presents at JSpring '07

Thu, 17 May 2007 04:00:00 GMT

John Rizzo (JavaBlackBelt co-founder) will present his unique pedagogies: TechMaps (Flash-animated with voiceovers) to explain various Spring topics. The crew will also be at JSpring to offer the JavaBlackBelt Challenge.
Be sure to stop by and say "Hi!" if you're there.

Moderator rotation

Sat, 05 May 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Why don't exams have moderators?
We rotated the exams people moderate. If you are a moderator and no longer have access to your exam, please post in the Exam selection thread. If you would like to become a moderator for an exam that is missing one, please e-mail Jeanne.

PROMO : Hibernate Exam - 2 contrib points

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Give a try to these two newly released Hibernate 3 exams

Almost free ... for a limited period only.

RELEASED: XML Core - Basic exam

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Check out the XML Core - Basic exam!
Thanks to Morten Lauritsen Khodabocus and Conrad Roche for moderating this exam.

Apress sponsors JavaBlackBelt auctions

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Apress, "Books for Professionals by Professionals," has kindly agreed to sponsor our auction prizes. They have an array of titles spanning the many Java technologies you use. Visit Apress.com

COMPETITION: Hibernate Core - Basic

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

It starts 27 April, 20:00 GMT
Registration is now OPEN...

Get ready for the next competition...

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

... with the Hibernate Core - Basic exam. The competition starts 27 April at 20:00 GMT. (Registrations open soon...)

JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

The development of JavaBlackBelt v3 will start shortly!
Get involved in the refactoring process: give us your comments and suggestions on the forum thread.

JavaBlackBelt at Vacature Talentum in Brussels

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

We'll be there with USG Innotiv to meet developers (and offer a little challenge):
25 April 2007
11:00 - 20:00
Tour & Taxis (Avenue du Port 86C, 1000 Brussels)
Booth: USG Innotiv
NOTE: if you're registered for the event, parking is free!

RELEASED: JDBC - Intermediate exam

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Check out the JDBC Intermediate exam!
Thanks to blue belt, Serkan Guler (UK) and brown belt, Amzad Basha (IN) for moderating this exam. Pass it and you'll get 3 knowledge points.

JavaBlackBelt at WebTech 2007

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

We've been invited to this one-day technology conference to offer the JavaBlackBelt Challenge to attendees. JavaBlackBelt's founders, John and Nicolas, will give technical talks on Spring as well as Hibernate using their unprecedented pedagogical materials: TechAnims.
WebTech 2007: 25 April, De Montil, Affligem, Belgium

Gear up for the next competition...

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

... with the Java 5 Base Library Features exam. The competition starts on 20 April, 17h00 GMT. Registration opens soon... Take the exam to gear up and win! And don't forget to check out the auction room, there could a book in there that you want!

COMPETITION: Java 5 Base Library Features

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

It starts 20 April, 17:00 GMT
Registration is now OPEN...

Should the OO - Intermed exam disappear ?

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

We are discussing OO exams, including GoF design pattern and OO design principle exams.

Tell us what you think in the forum!

Prepare for the next competition ...

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Take the SQL & RDB Basic exam. The upcoming competition starts on 13 April, 14h00 GMT. Registration opens soon...

COMPETITION: SQL & RDB - Basic

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

It starts 13 April, 14:00 GMT
Registration is now OPEN...

Manning Publications sponsors auctions

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Manning Publications Co., the publisher that brings you the "In Action" books, has kindly agreed to sponsor our auction prizes with titles like "Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action" and "EJB3 in Action" among many others.

Winter may be done, but still it's cool to "Hibernate"...

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

All that is needed is YOU -- to take the beta exams and rate the questions. (It's free!)
The exams nearly have enough questions for release, however there's been little activity on them. (And yeah, we know they're kind of "points-pricey.")
To show our appreciation for your help, these exams will be points-free for one month from their release date(s).
Please help us to release the Hibernate exams...

Sharing community spirit

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT

We really appreciate that some of you mention the community, like exams you passed and belts you earned on your blogs and websites. (We know who you are from our site stats ;-)) Did you know that you could add a "Congratulations" box too? With it you can show your appreciation to fellow users or those in your country. It's super EZ: just a few lines of Javascript...

JavaBlackBelt wins Brussels Innovation Award (BIA) 2007

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 04:00:00 GMT

The JavaBlackBelt platform was chosen as the top innovation in the Management, Marketing and Strategy (for an SMC) category.

New competition: "Is your XML "X-cellent"?

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Find out by registering for the XML Core Basic competition! The competition starts Friday, 30 March, 09:00 GMT.
Don't forget to check out the auctions, there's probably a book in there that you may want!

New Spring Exam

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 04:00:00 GMT

To celebrate the clocks springing forward for daylight savings (EU&UK) this weekend,*** brown belt Henryk Konsek has created a Spring DAO JDBC exam...
(*** => a little joke to remind you to turn your clocks ahead.)

JavaBlackBelt in Jolly ol' London

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Last week we went to the UK to offer our Java Challenge at QCon and Sun Tech Days. We're proud to say that we had over 200 challengers . . .

Exam released: JUnit - Intermediate

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Check out the JUnit Intermediate exam! Thanks to Premanand Chandrasekaran and Julio Cesar DamascenoPremanand Chandrasekaran and Julio Cesar Damasceno for building this exam.

Exam released: Java SE Concurrency High-Level

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 05:00:00 GMT

This exam covers the new features from the java.util.concurrent package in Java 5. Ever wonder what a CountDownLatch is? Check out the exam! And we shout-out to Chris Cooper and Jimmy PerssonChris Cooper and Jimmy Persson for building this exam.

PMD exam testimonial by Tom Copeland

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Tom Copeland kindly reviewed the objectives of the PMD exam. AND, he wrote about our community and the exam on his blog! The exam, still in Beta could use your contributions...

Exam released soon: Java SE - Concurrency Hi-Level

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Why is this important news? Because that's the topic of the next competition. Registration opens soon...
A great way to prepare for the upcoming competition is to take the exam. (And PLEASE, don't forget to vote on the questions!)

User interview: brown belt & fast-tracker

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Sometimes we notice a user who blazes through the belt track. Dominik Klimczak happens to be one of them. Dominik got his brown belt in less than one month.
Here's the interview...

Missions possible

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 05:00:00 GMT

We really appreciate that users give us their free time; moderators and admins have been very dedicated to the application. Recently we asked some of the moderators to take on special missions. In particular, to help us get some outstanding tasks done like moving questions. For example, too difficult questions from the Java SE Basic exam to more appropriate exams.

Java ME exam released

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Jim McLachlan, a blue belt from the UK and Soren Hilmer, a brown belt from Denmark, have released our first Java ME exam, which gets you 3 knowledge points...

JMS exam released

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Brown Belt, Gonzalo Herreros and Green Belt Graeme Dunlop, released the JMS exam, which gives you 3 knowledge points.

New feature: Got points to spare?

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Give some of them away! It's E-Z to do ...

One million answers

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Our website reached a truly significant milestone: a tally of one million answers (to the multiple choice questions) in the database. We're very proud to share this news...

Regular Expressions Exam Released

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Green Belt, Graeme Dunlop, released the Regular Expressions exam, which gives you 2 knowledge points.

JavaBlackBelt adopts the TeamWork tool for in house "TO DOs"

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

I met Pietro Polsinelli, one of the TeamWork creators, at JAOO (Danish Java/methodo/.Net) conference, where he demonstrated their brain child. We were very impressed by the detailed user interface of this web application, which looks more like a desktop application.

Java NIO exam created

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Brown Belt, Sergey Trasko, created the Java NIO exam, which was given the green light by Java architect, consultant and author of Java NIO (O'Reilly), Ron Hitchens. The exam will very soon go into Beta.

Happy New Year!!!

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

We want to wish each of you a happy, healthy and successful 2007. And to say "Thanks - A LOT!" for making JavaBlackBelt a continued success.

SQL & RDB - Basic exam released

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Brown Belts, Sergey Trasko and Jeanne Boyarsky, released the SQL & RDB - Basic exam, which gives you 1 knowledge point.

Skills Matter partnership

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

London-based Skills Matter partners with JavaBlackBelt. The partnership delivers a unique blended-learning solution to UK software architects and developers across the UK.

Taking the JavaBlackBelt Challenge at Javapolis

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 05:00:00 GMT

Even though we weren't handing out fun swag, like free beer (Sun and BEA), we enjoyed constant attention. Over 300 "watchers and/or "takers" of the contest continually lined up behind our 3 laptops. (Note to ourselves for Javapolis 2007: bring 5+ laptops.) One of the highlights was meeting David Michiels, a Java developer at Certipost.be

Java SE Networking exam released

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 05:00:00 GMT

Brown Belt, Eric Wendelin, released the Java SE Networking exam, which gives you 3 knowledge points.

Hibernate 3 Core (non Basic) exam released

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 05:00:00 GMT

Brown Belt, Nicolas Duran, released the Hibernate 3 Core exam, which gives you 5 knowledge points.

Shipping problems

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:00:00 GMT

Shipping problems to foreign post offices

Some JavaBlackBelt users aren't receiving their packages sent via postal mail. Unfortunately, we can't control this problem.

More Java exams released

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 04:00:00 GMT

Exam leaders and moderators Serkan Guler, based in the UK and Vitaly Logvynchuk, from the Ukraine released the Java Collections exam.

The Java SE Base API - Basic exam is released by moderators Thomas Schroeder, based in Australia and Jonhnny Weslley, from Brazil.

We thank each of them for dedicated, hard work to make these exams possible.

Bonus Points

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 04:00:00 GMT

A new feature is active on JavaBlackBelt, to help focus contributions.

You probably noticed that when adding a question to the Java SE - Basic exam, you get a discouraging message. This exam contains too many hard questions and we need to slow down the contributions there to ease the manual filtering (question moving).

We also bring a motivating way to focus question authors where it's the most useful: a bonus factor associated with some exams.
For example, most Hibernate exams now have a x2.0 factor to double your contribution points.

Spring Core (non Basic) exam released

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 04:00:00 GMT

John Rizzo, from Belgium, released the Spring Core (non basic at all) exam, which gives you 9 knowledge points.

It requires 50 contribution points, and we might temporarily lower this to 0 in a near future.

JavaBlackBelt at J-Fall

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 04:00:00 GMT

Last week JavaBlackBelt gave a talk at J-Fall, organised by the Netherlands Java User Group.

Bigger, faster, better

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 04:00:00 GMT

We migrated the platform to a new server. Now there's more bandwidth to make the application run faster.

Since May 2005, the guys behind JavaLobby.org generously hosted JavaBlackBelt.

We'd like to shout out a huge thanks to Rick and Matt for supporting us!

JavaBlackBelt at JAOO 2006

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 04:00:00 GMT

Nicolas and I were given the opportunity to speak at the JAOO conference in Denmark. It was the first time we attended this conference. It was a memorable experience for us that went beyond that "newcomer" sensation. We decided to write some words about it.

TechAnim on The Server Side

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 16:15:00 GMT

A TechAnim authored, by John Rizzo (co-founder of JavaBlackBelt) and Teodor Danciu (of JasperSoft), is published on the TheServerSide.com

Concurrent Programming

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:36:00 GMT

Chris Cooper has written objectives for 2 concurrency exams.

Java SE Concurrency - High-Level
Java SE Concurrency - Low-Level

These exam objectives were been kindly reviewed/improved by a well-known author of programming books (eg, Concurrency) and a member of the concerned JSR.

Java SE Reflection released

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 04:51:00 GMT

Chris Cooper, United Kingdom, released the Java SE Reflection exam.

It's worth 3 knowledge points.

Are your questions original?

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 13:18:00 GMT

We've added intro text to the wiki page "How to Write A Quality Question" (menu: Info > About/Manual > ...)

It was time to point out that our high-quality collaborative content should be written by the community itself.

Don't let the Hibernate exams...um...hibernate.

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 15:56:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt is looking for leaders to create Hibernate exams.

Java ME Exam testimonial

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 04:00:00 GMT

Take a look at the Java ME exam testimonial by Vikram Goyal, author Pro Java ME MMAPI.

EJB Intermediate released

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:00:00 GMT

Sunny Wear, United States, released the EJB Intermediate exam.

It's worth 4 knowledge points.

A view from the Top

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 14:19:00 GMT

Amzad Basha, a Green Belt based in India, is a Top Contributor with well over 1400 contribution points.

Amzad has authored over 240 exam questions that average 4.2 stars each. He holds second place as Top Contributor - ever. He's got plenty of points left to spend - particularly in the auction room!
To all you contenders: contributing = points = Top of the List.

O'Reilly EuroOSCON

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:01:00 GMT

EuroOSCON, the O'Reilly European Open Source Convention, 18-21 September 2006 in Brussels, Belgium is an opportunity to immerse yourself in all that open source technology has to offer, from a practical perspective as well as a creative one. It's the place to be (or to become) a part of the growing free and open source community that is equipped with the skills to meet computing challenges, both today and tomorrow.
There is a 20% discount off registration fees - just use code euos0620ms.
Visit the registration information page for more details: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/48/register.html

Natural born leaders

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:48:00 GMT

We've noticed that many of you have been steadily earning more belts.

We are looking for exam leaders to build an all new "EJB 3 Basic" exam. So, anyone who is up for the challenge to build this exam, we'd like to hear from you!

Go here How to Moderate for all of the details.

Or e-mail us ( trish [at> javablackbelt |dot| com ) !

Split the Java SE Base API

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 19:22:00 GMT

Thomas and Chris started a discussion about splitting up the Java SE Base API exam.

The idea is to have basic and intermediate exams that cover a variety of topics to guarantee that examinees are well rounded.

The result of this can be seen on this wiki page. We encourage everyone to read through them and give your comments.

PMD exam

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 18:11:00 GMT

Morten Lauritsen, from Switzerland, proposes the PMD Basic exam.

Feel free to add your questions.
Thanks for your efforts, Morten!

View the PMD Basic exam objectives.

Developing on the fast-track

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 04:00:00 GMT

Denis Yudin, earned his orange belt in one day.

Read the interview...

Struts Intermediate exam

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 19:45:00 GMT

Amzad Basha, from India, proposes a Struts Intermediate exam.
Feel free to add new questions.

Swing exam back to beta

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 18:26:00 GMT

Due to the crash disk some of the images attached to the Swing exam questions were lost causing server errors while taking the exam.
We wait for the crashed disk to be sent to our office to recover datas. In the meantime the exam is not available.
This is discussed in this thread

There's always room at the Top

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:41:00 GMT

Guillermo Schwarz, from Chile, is now one of the Top 3 Contributors (EVER) with 1000 contribution points (which increased to 1006 points, only 1 day after we posted this.)

He's also one of the Top Contributor of the past 7 days. Thing is, Guillermo spends a lot of his points in the auction room. Currently, he's running low.
So step up contenders!

Moderate exam questions, get your contribution points and take your place at the Top - of the Contributor's List.

Switching Java SE Basic to YAMP affects its success rate

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:02:00 GMT

Since Friday, July 28, this exam is more difficult. We've noticed that there are less yellow belts being earned because of the switch to YAMP.
We apologize (see the forum thread) and plan to take action about this.

The task is quite detailed. We need to sort through 137 intricate questions... if you'd like to help us out...

It's a swift opportunity to rack up some contribution points.

Java 5 New Language Features released

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:53:00 GMT

Thomas Schroeder, from Australia released the Java 5 New Language Features exam.

This is the first exam using YAMP for questions selection. With its 3 knowledge points, this exam should enable more people to get their brown belt.

Disk Crash.

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:12:00 GMT

Due to a hardware failure (a disk crashed) JBB was down this Monday. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience. JBB is now back online, for internal technical reasons we ask you not to update any wiki page till the end of the week. Thank you for your comprehension. Sorry Again for the inconvenience ...

Wiley Summer Books

Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:09:00 GMT

Wiley publishers cover JavaBlackBelt contributors with great Java books for the summer !

They will ship you one book a week. Let's start with a book about trains.

WebWork conversion

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:41:00 GMT

JavaBlackBelt development team deployed the WebWork version of the platform Monday night.

It was previously based on Struts 1.3. WebWork is the successor of Struts. The Struts framework splits to SAF (Struts Action Framework) and Shale (JSF). We feel JSF innappropriate for JavaBlackBelt. We are very happy with WebWork (that is the fundation code for SAF). It is powerful, easy, consistant, and is a very natural evolution (from Struts 1.x), lowering the learning curve and developement length in our case, compared to other solutions.

You will probably notice small differences with some pages. Please report bugs and problems in the forum. The fixes will be redeployed this week.

I'd like to thank Aymeric, Nadege and Lionel for this 5 week refactoring effort, converting the 100+ pages and actions.

The development team will now focus on YAMP: switch some exams to YAMP for questions selection, and give new screens to moderators to have a better view/control on what happen to the exam they lead. After YAMP, they will focus on the coproporate platform.

Swing - Basic exam, released

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:18:00 GMT

Javier Diaz, from Spain released the Swing - Basic exam.

This exam required to add image support to the questions.

Thank you Javier for this effort.
Special thanks to Romain Guy who reviewed the objectives.

View the Swing - basic exam objectives.

The Server Side Java Symposium

Tue, 23 May 2006 20:25:00 GMT

I go to The Server Side Java Symposium conference, June 21-23, Barcelona.

If you joins us at Barcelona, please contact me. You can reach me at Aymeric [at> JavaBlackBelt dot com.

Aymeric (the Architect behind JavaBlackBelt).

JavaOne

Thu, 11 May 2006 15:10:00 GMT

We go to JavaOne, San Francisco.

If you go to JavaOne too, don't hesitate to contact us, you'll find John in the press room very often.

Ruby - basic

Wed, 03 May 2006 14:11:00 GMT

When Dmitry Buzdin, from Latvia, proposed us to develop a Ruby - basic exam and we welcomed the initiative warmly. The objectives are ready and you can start filling it with questions.

We've had some reactions from the Ruby and the JavaBlackBelt communities already.

To the Ruby community, we say: Yes, we know the well-known SCJP certification suffers problems, and it's partially why we made JavaBlackBelt. It's up to you to help defining this basic level exam, fill it with no-nonsense no-trick questions, and make it the way you like. It can be one more great tool for Ruby new learners.

To the JavaBlackBelt community, we say: We understand that JavaBlackBelt is not RubyBlackBelt. Let's host our guest at JavaBlackBelt for the moment and we'll program the necessary healthy separation as needed (e.g.: Ruby knowledge points not counting for Java belt track; RubyBlackBelt.com ?).

Welcome to this Ruby - basic exam and let's see what happen :-)

View the Ruby - basic exam objectives.

JSF 1.1 - basic

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 13:04:00 GMT
Ronald Wildenberg, from the Netherlands, finalized objectives for the JSF - 1.1 basic exam.
Your questions are welcome. You can also take the beta and vote for the existing questions to make them move to the exam zone (or to the feezer).

Spring MVC - objectives

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 02:22:00 GMT
Maarten Volders, from Belgium puts objectives for a Spring MVC exam on-line. You are welcome to add questions.

Java SE Intermed Split

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 13:41:00 GMT
The JavaBlackBelt team finalized the splitting of the Java SE - Intermed exam. The old exam will be set back in writing objectives stage during the construction of the new exams, corresponding categories and the transfer of questions.

EJB - Intermed exam beta

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:48:00 GMT
Sunny Wear, from Florida made the EJB - Intermed exam ready for beta tests with more than 70 questions.
She sorted many questions we had from the SCBCD and SCEA categories to include the most appropriate in this EJB - Intermed exam (double categories / question).
These questions just wait for your votes to migrate to the exam zone (or to the freezer) before we release the exam.

OO - Intermed exam released

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 02:33:00 GMT
Guillermo Schwarz, from Chile released the OO - Intermed exam.
Thank you Guillermo, for letting us to get a green (and then blue) belt.

Spring Core - basic released

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:41:00 GMT
Ronald Wildenberg, from the Netherlands, released the Spring Core - basic exam.
It's 3 knowledge points worth and having a brown belt is nearly possible.

JUnit - Intermed

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:52:00 GMT
Premanand Chandrasekaran from the United States has written objectives for a JUnit - Intermed exam.
You are welcome to add questions!

Web Services

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 22:14:00 GMT
Daniel Oliva Bianco from Argentina released the Web Services - Basic exam.
Take it to accumulate knowledge points for your green belt.

JDBC - Intermed

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 03:06:00 GMT
Serkan Guler from the United Kingdom has written objectives for a JDBC - Intermed exam.
There are already beta questions and you are invited to add yours.

Hibernate 3 Exams

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:14:00 GMT
Nicolas Brasseur, from Belgium, leads the developement of 8 Hibernate v3 exams.
Your questions are welcome !

Tiles exam under construction

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:02:00 GMT
Moandji Ezana from Belgium, has written objectives for the Tiles (Struts) exam.
Your "Tiles" questions are welcome.

Ant Basic and JUnit Basic

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:01:00 GMT
Jeanne Boyarsky from New-York released both Ant Basic and JUnit Basic exams.
Take them to accumulate knowledge points for your orange or green belt!

More Auctions!

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 07:25:00 GMT
The auction room is a success and the bids let me think that you like the stuff we put there. We asked Chris Richardson from California, to offer his book POJOs in Action to JavaBlackBelt's contributors.
The publisher of Chris's book, Manning Publications will ship 5 copies (1 for each auction winner).
Thank you both for this concrete contribution to JavaBlackBelt community :-)

What is JavaBlackBelt ?

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 05:00:00 GMT
JavaBlackBelt is a community for Java & Open Source skills- building and assessment.

This is the place where Java developers get recognized for their technology knowledge and development abilities. It is dedicated to technical exams about Java and related technologies that are mass- authored and filtered by the community.

Read more about JavaBlackBelt...