Martijn's PHP Coding Blog

While parts of the world are still freezingly cold, Taipei is already slowly warming up to 21 degrees, blue skies and sunshine. Sadly enough as this is my last day in the city for probably a very long time. Tomorrow I will fly off to a new life in the old country. After twelve years of travelling all over the island this place really feels like home.

Today was also the last day that I could take the second and final part of the MySQL 5.0 Developer certifications. The US$ 200 SUN exam voucher I had purchased earlier is only valid in Taiwan. Taking the exam in the Netherlands was thus not an option.

Looking back at my previous blog entry about the MySQL Examens — it took me 20 days to prepare this part of the exam. I studied by browsing through the exam book at breakfast and before going to bed and added some more serious study blocks to work through all the exercise questions.

The second exam was quite a bit harder than the first one mostly because it asked many interesting (and confusing/tricky) questions about inner, left and right joins and of course sub-queries.

But what I found the hardest chapter in the book Chapter 18. Stored Procedures and Functions in which a complete programming language is introduced using only about 2-3 examples was good for only a few questions. Just pay attention to the correct syntax.

Overal I really enjoyed studying for the exam. The MySQL exam preparation book is excellent and covers the exam exactly.

As promised in my last post (twenty days ago — life has been busy!) I am working through the MySQL Developer 5.0 examinations. I have just completed the first of two exams and I am trying to find time to cram for the second exam.

There are plenty of changes going on here — the original exam MySQL exam provider was changed this year from Pearson Vu to Prometric as Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL.

And now of course Sun is in limbo as it in turn is being acquired by Oracle — a deal being blocked in Europe because of , yes :  MySQL. For a by the minute discussion of what is going on there just keep track of the postings at Planet MySQL.

Expect many FAQ’s to be out of date. It is better to check the MySQL Certification forum for the latest changes. The person to note is David Stokes who is the MySQL certification manager and who posts regularly to this forum. Read the rest of this entry »