JavaBlackBelt : News

JAOO 2008

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

September 28 - Oct 3, Nicolas Meeus goes 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 (3.202EUR), 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 Patters 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!

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

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.

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.

Please send a mail to JavaBlackBelt dot admin at gmail dot com to be invited joining this group. In the mail, put a link to your JavaBlackBelt profile (on JavaBlackBelt.com), and the e-mail address that is in your linkedIn profile.

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.

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 ...

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.

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.