My last Java certification is the SCJP 6 from 2010, so when the OCP 17 came out, I thought it high time for a refresher. I am setting aside an hour every day when I’m at my brightest, which is after coffee and before breakfast. I'll share my personal study tips later, but it's more credible if I first pass the exam. So, I found another topic to distract me from my studies that I want to dwell on. It’s the effect that modern IDEs and resources like Stack Overflow are having on our brains. Once you dig into the 900+ pages of schoolwork that is the OCP Study Guide, you’re painfully reminded that they have been making us lazy and maybe even a bit stupid.
Granted, the sheer number of facts to digest would have been less overwhelming if I had kept up more closely with the state of the art over the last decade. Several new features have been added, of whose existence I was at best only aware. After fifteen years of using Java, you tend to rely on tried and tested ways, for which there is no excuse of course. It’s a classic example of not sharpening the saw, so shame on me.