At only 14-years-old, Bryan Field of St. Elmo has earned the distinction as one of the youngest, and may be the youngest, Certified Java Computer Programmer in Tennessee. This advanced computer language certification was provided by Sun Microsystems Inc., the owner of the Java programming language. Bryan's family owns and operates SurfN Development Corporation, a business software developer and service company, and a Sun Microsystems partner.
Alan Field, Bryan's father and SurfN's owner, says "Bryan's achievement is especially notable since the Java Programming language takes advantage of the multi-threaded systems which have just begun entering the market in the last few years." Sun's Global Communications Officer, Jacki Decoster, agrees that Java certification at only 14 is "very rare" if not unique. "I doubt we have many other teenagers who are certified – it’s usually older people in the workforce." Jacki Decoster explained that the company does not keep records of test-taker ages, so "there is not a metric/statistic available."
Bryan's programming experience in the family business was supplemented by help from his mom, Pauline Field, who has a BS Computer Science degree from UTC and graduated Cum Laude (with honors). Home schooling their five children, naturally included computer skills which would be useful.
Bryan and his younger sister Susan, who is 12, spend time on Mondays participating as student members of the Chattanooga Engineers Club. "We enjoy the lunches and experience a wide variety of technical subjects, but 'computer technology' is still my favorite," says Bryan.
"These programming skills are usually taught in college courses leading to advanced computer science degrees," said Bryan. "It helped that I had experience in writing real-world-applications with multi-threaded programs prior to the certification test. I already created systems for secure encryption and decryption as well as creating barcode images from raw data. Most people think of 'Javascript' when it comes to the internet, but Java Programming is way past that.
Java is an advanced programming language which uses multi-threaded connections, making it exponentially faster than single-threaded systems, and thus quite a bit more complex. Its significance is growing rapidly in today's most demanding systems. Bryan's skills will be well recognized since there are many notable Java systems already in use today. Notable leaders including eBay, Google, Motorola and NASA, and thousands of others worldwide are deploying Java based systems.
Sun Microsystems believes Java is the next leader in computer programming languages, so much so that they changed their NASDAQ symbol to 'JAVA' from 'SUNW' last week.
"Bryan began programming at 10-years-old when my wife and I decided that his computer time would need be more productive then mastering the latest games," said Mr. Field. "I expect him to have a brief experience as maybe the youngest 'Sun-Certified' Java programmer in Tennessee. He is being closely followed by his sister Susan, who is 12, and currently practicing her Java programming skills and Sarah, now 10, who would like to outdo them both."