Apache Camel Fundamentals exam resurrected!

A long time ago I created a draft of the objectives for the Apache Camel Fundamentals exam. I want to reanimate the topic. The objectives have been reviewed and commented by the mighty Claus Ibsen himself so the quality of the recent version of Google Doc should be quite good. :)

I want to release the exam in the next week. Any feedback regarding the objectives is welcome and appreciated.

In general we (particularly I) plan to create separated track for ServiceMix stack. So expect more exams regarding Camel, ServiceMix, ActiveMQ, CXF and Fuse Source products in general. Here at Black Belt factory we just love ServiceMix and Fuse Source stuff, so we want to promote it and help people to learn this wonderful integration stack with our courses and exams.

If you are an integration kind of geek, you may also be interested in our new EIP exam.

New exams in progress summary #1

Currently we're working on the following new exams on Black Belt Factory:

Apache Camel fundamentals

Web fundamentals

Java 7 Language enhancements

Servlets 3 (fundamentals and advanced)

Oracle PL/SQL

Vaadin core advanced (course)

PHP Fundamentals

JBoss 6 administration fundamentals

Enterprise Integration Patterns

JUnit exams refactoring

Android fundamentals

Wanna join us? Just drop me a line.

New Servlets 3 exams on Black Belt Factory

Just wanted to announce that we want to create new Servlets 3 exams on Black Belt Factory. Servlets 3 exams will exist regardless of the legacy Servlets 2 exams (BTW one of the first I took on Java Black Belt many years ago).

Maciej Makula created an excellent draft of the objectives. Feel free to check it out and drop us some feedback.

New exam on Black Belt Factory - Java 7 Library Enhancements

Just few days after the release of the Java 7 Core Language Features exam on Black Belt Factory, one of our top black belts Ramon Anger, created draft of the new Java 7 related exam. We talk about Java 7 Library Enhancements exam.

Feel free to join our discussion and shape the new exam. Any feedback regarding new objectives is welcome.

New Java 7 core features exam on Black Belt Factory

After few weeks of intense work our multinational Polish-German team (together with with Krzysiek Kozioł and Ramon Anger) created new Java 7 New Core Features exam.

Writing questions to our new exam is the great opportunity to learn new cool Java 7 features before the official release. In particular due to the x2 multiplier for contribution points.

If you want to complain that Java 7 brings much more than core features, feel free to join our discussion and help us to create more Java 7 exams.

Enjoy.

Oracle Fundamentals exam goes beta

Two Oracle experts from Poland (Krzysiek Kozioł and Krzysiek Mały) contributed new Oracle Fundamentals exam.

Now we need to fill new exam with questions. To encourage contributors I set x2 multiplier to all contribution points earned with this exam. Tempting, isn't it?

This exam is the first one in the brand new Oracle SQL path on Black Belt Factory. Together with the both Christophers we're still working on the next Oracle exams. Wanna join us? :)

New Vaadin Core Advanced course on Black Belt Factory

I just committed new Vaadin-related course to Black Black Belt factory. It is named Vaadin Core Advanced, and as its name suggests, covers advanced aspects of Vaadin (these not covered by the Vaadin Fundamentals course).

This is beta of version of the course, so we focused on the details table of contents so far. If you're Vaadin hacker and want to help us with:
a) improving the course structure
b) filling the content
...feel free to drop me a line.

More Vaadin exams on Black Belt Factory

As you may know, we are quite interested in Vaadin here at Black Belt Factory. For example the latest version of Black Belt platform has been migrated from Struts to Vaadin. We got also excellent course and exam for Vaadin fundamentals (blessed by mighty Vaadin authors themselves).

Now I started special mission on Black Belt Factory. We want to create comprehensive Vaadin track, with content quality confirmed by Vaadin creators. To do that we need to elaborate new, specialized courses (and exams) for various Vaadin aspects (Core Advanced, Themes, GWT Widgets and so forth).

I started new thread on our forum regarding new Vaadin challenges. You are welcome to join us and contribute.

We working on the new Enterprise Integration Patterns exam on Black Belt Factory

Stéphane SOREL from France proposed to create new Enterprise Integration Patterns exam on Black Belt Factory. Actually this is something I've wanted to do for the last few months.

You are welcome to join our discussion and contribute the exam objectives.

Should we deprecate JUnit 3 exams on Black Belt Factory

Do you think that we need to deprecate JUnit 3.x exams on Black Belt Factory? There's recent discussion on Black Belt Factory forum regarding this issue.

I created poll on Google Docs in order to find out what people think about that idea.

I personally think that we should remote plain old JUnit 3 stuff. There's no point in keeping out-of-date exams on Black Belt Factory.

Come on, help us and take the poll. :)

Oracle Queries exam proposal on Black Belt Factory

Krzysztof Mały proposed new Oracle queries exam on Black Belt Factory. I hope that Oracle won't sue us for that :P

If you know a bit about Oracle databases and want to help us with the exam objectives - feel free to join us :) We would appreciate all contribution.

CVS Concepts exam released on Black Belt Factory

Few days ago we released CVS Concepts exam on Black Belt Factory.

Special thanks goes to two CVS experts - Govarthanan M and Łukasz Sierant. Thank you guys :) .

Exam is kindly lead by Mateusz Mrozewski.

Have fun. :)

BTW I like to see so many Polish names on Black Belt News :) .

Hibernate Inheritance Strategies exam goes stable

I'm happy to announce that Hibernate Inheritance Strategies exam on Black Belt Factory is finally stable.

Special thanks goes to our top contributors - Ramon Anger, Meissa Sakho and Oleg Chubaryov. Ramon is also the exam leader so if you got some doubts regarding the test, feel free to contact him (or me :).

Enjoy.