Thursday, June 21, 2007

Did You Found Your Balance With Java?

When I was young I practised judo for a couple of years. Got myself a brown belt and nothing after that, as I wasn't the competition kind of guy. I could have managed getting the black belt on technique alone (by doing so-called kata's), but that would require a lot of practise and time, which I did not had. One of the reasons being that at the same time I also practiced jujutsu (got myself a green belt for that).

When I went to the university I visited a different dojo, again only for a couple of times because of lack of time, but long enough to understand what in the previous dojo the sensei failed to teach me: proper balance. Imagine that during a randori (that is sparring) you jump around too much, giving the opponent many opportunities to show you every corner of the dojo. Well, that was me.

I have not been doing martial arts for many years now, so I was way beyond any frustration about this. That was until on the recent J-Spring of the NL-JUG (spring conference of Dutch Java User Group) when I learned about the JavaBlackBelt community. As is described on the home page of their web site: "JavaBlackBelt is a community for Java and related technologies certifications. Everybody is welcome to take existing exams and build new ones." I couldn't help it, I had to check it out. Am I still jumping around, or have I found my balance with Java?

Well, I expect it will be a long way before I know, as again I don't have much time. But I managed to get at least a yellow belt! So for now I find some comfort knowing that at least I'm beyond the level of Java-newbie.

5 comments:

jwbroek said...

Cool! Gotta check that out. (Lately been using my time on the train for brushing up on the java 5 cert.)

Jan Kettenis said...

You do that. I've got the impression that when you got the orange belt you might be well prepared for SCJP.

Anonymous said...

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أيفون said...

i must recheck this before i can answer

Stella said...

Thanks so much for this article, quite useful piece of writing.