Saturday, August 22, 2009

New Blog for Java Developers: CertPal

Many of the most popular software development blogs are long-running blogs. This is not surprising because it is obvious that the longer a blog exists, the more opportunity there is for it to be discovered and featured on sites like DZone. If a blog is long-running and consistently offers material readers feel is worthwhile, the blog can become extremely popular. Rather than subscribing to particular blogs, I tend to use aggregation sites like DZone or JavaWorld blogs and then click to articles of interest, which often end up linking to a well-known blog or at least to a well-established blog. However, from time to time, a new software development blog comes along that grabs my attention for its freshness and content. I have previously written about the somewhat contrarian blog called The Programmer Has No Clothes. In today's blog post, I want to highlight the CertPal blogs that appear to have just been started this month (August 2009).

According to their About Us page, CertPal provides education services related to certification test preparation and related topics. I am impressed with the frequency and breadth of their posts so far. As of this writing (afternoon of August 22), they have posted seven entries already this month (and the first entry was mid-month). Topics covered so far include Navigable Set (I have previously covered the similar NavigableMap), Sun Java Certification Pitfalls, limitations on a Java method size, autobox/unboxing gotchas, and free UML tools (not including the one I use - Oracle JDeveloper 11g's built-in tool).

Although I typically don't subscribe to blogs because I have found that I ignore such subscriptions anyway, I will be adding the CertPal blogs to my short list of blogs that I browse to on occasion to see what their latest offerings are. Many blogs start out strong and sometimes quickly wither away, but CertPal's blogs look like a valuable addition to the Java side of the blogosphere.

Note: I have absolutely no affiliation with CertPal and no idea of their future plans for their blog posts.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Dustin,

It was very kind of you to write a review of my blog and recommend it. Thank you. I was not aware of the java.blogs list. Just added the blog there.

I thought I would send you an email instead of a comment, but I was unable to find one. You can drop us an email at the address feedback {at} certpal {dot} com if you would like to stay in touch via email. Thanks again for your post.