I met Simon Roberts today

[paul wheaton]

I actually shook his hand! Twice!
Nice guy. Apparently he bought an airplane recently.
Just thought I'd share cuz I knew a lot of you would be jealous.
I'm currently working on the same floor of the same building as he is.

[shailesh sonavadekar]

yes , Paul , i am quite jealous. I am burning here on my seat. somebody call for firefighters !!! can an author of java certification book can buy airplane ? Paul , give me some inspiration. Give me some guidance to write smashhit java book.

[Ajith Kallambella]

Wow....how ... hope he gives you a ride too...
( I am green with envy!! )
Ajith
[This message has been edited by Ajith Kallambella (edited October 23, 2000).]

[Marcus Green]

But did you get his email address

[simonr]

Actually, I woke up with him this morning ;>
Well, I'm very flattered by this traffic, and it was great to meet Paul today. I'd heard a lot about this site, since I'm now privileged to work with Kathy Kozel who you might know as part of this site's history.
I'm very pleased that it's true that I bought a plane over the weekend, but it's not as big a deal as it sounds. It's a 1946 airplane, called a Luscombe 8, and cost about the same as a new family sedan, that is about half the cost of an average SUV!
Unfortunately, as a non US Citizen (we're working on that I seem to be unable to register it here
Meanwhile, good luck to all approaching certification.
Cheers,
Simon

[chetan nain]

ITS HIM, ITS HIM
WE ARE ALL BLESSED!!
;-)

[Mapraputa Is]

What's going on... I am totally confused... Paul, what should bartenders do when Simon is here? My job description miss instructions for this case...

[chetan nain]

ITS HIM, ITS HIM,

THANK YOU GOD!!!

[Udayan Naik]

OH God !! Simon Roberts is in our midst !! Let us all bow down and acknowledge HIS presence.
Hey guys ! How about pulling off a coup and getting James Gosling to visit too ? That would be a real treat for us lowly earthlings.
------------------
Come on in !! Drinks are on the house in the Big Moose Saloon !!

[DD]

WOW!!!
I am speechless!!!
Boy....seriously! What does one do when u bang into the guy who is responsible for so many SCJP's!
Anyhow...I was thinking of sending an email to u telling u how good u'r book is...so just will take the opportunity that u'll recheck this post and say thanks
-Deb

[shailesh sonavadekar]

my god , simon , are you there ? what i can say now ? I just dumb out here. I am just reading your post again & again. Paul , hats off to you , for bringing Simon here.
As asked by Marcus " Have you taken the e-mail address ? "
Simon , please give your invaluable suggestions on the latest pattern Of SCJP , preparation guideline for new version for the benefit of the all javaranch community.
By the way , congratulations for your completely revamped version of Book for SCJP test. I think in India , it is not going to come soon in indian edition. we will not be so fortunate to have your book in india , immediatley. cograts for your plane also. one thing more. what to do you mean by non-us citizen in your post.
great work , paul. thanks once again for inviting godfather.
bye , simon.

[Marcus Green]

I think that the Roberts and Heller JDK 1.1 book was at least 50% of the material that got me through the certification exam. Wonderful to see a post from the man himself, and greetings to Kathy who was a tremendous help and inspiration to me both in passing the exam and putting together my web site.
I was teasing about the email address as Simon would probably get a gazillion emails a day if it were available (though I would only ask him the very sensible and interesting questions myself of course :-).
Great to hear from you Simon, what nationality are you by the way?
Marcus
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http://www.jchq.net Mock Exams, FAQ, Tutorial, Links, Book reviews
=================================================
Almost as good as JavaRanch
==================================================================
[This message has been edited by Marcus Green (edited October 24, 2000).]

[Harpal Singh]

WOW............
Simon is/was here,hey java ranch members bow to simon with due respects,the great great java expert,who has helped people understand java in a better way....hail people like Simon and Marcus...May we have more of them in near future....
Harpal

[paul wheaton]

I would guess that Mr. Roberts comes from the country you are sitting in Marcus: Merry old England.
I heard a rumor that Mr. Roberts is working on a new book that covers the architect exam.

[Rob Levo]

Hey Paul, no message about the proper name rule for your hero? LOL

[Ajith Kallambella]

When God created universe, he made two kinds of people - men(like me and you?? ) and demigods( like you know who -including Marcus ). He then relaxed all rules for supermen .....
....you know rest of the story( that demigods joined hands together to plot the dominion of the universe..yada yada yada )

Ajith

[simonr]

Originally posted by Marcus Green:
But did you get his email address

I didn't give that, but if I miss questions, Paul has it. Paul, consider yourself invited to forward interesting stuff, or attract my attention. I probably can't find the time to "lurk" these groups as much as I'd like, but that should allow me to get involved on a fairly regular basis...
Cheers,
Simon

[simonr]

The revision of SCJP we just undertook was really an attempt to refresh the questions. Little by little the "pool" had been leaking as people told each other about them. So, we wrote an entire new pool (phew!) Anyway, we were careful to cover the same balance of topics, in the same depth, as before. So, really, you shouldn't find any great difference in the new version - although some of the older "self test" questions that were getting a little too close to the originals will be less useful if you just learn the patterns. If, as always, you aim to _understand_ the material, the new will be indistinguishable from the old.
Cheers,
Simon

Originally posted by shailesh sonavadekar:
my god , simon , are you there ? what i can say now ? I just dumb out here. I am just reading your post again & again. Paul , hats off to you , for bringing Simon here.
As asked by Marcus " Have you taken the e-mail address ? "
Simon , please give your invaluable suggestions on the latest pattern Of SCJP , preparation guideline for new version for the benefit of the all javaranch community.
By the way , congratulations for your completely revamped version of Book for SCJP test. I think in India , it is not going to come soon in indian edition. we will not be so fortunate to have your book in india , immediatley. cograts for your plane also. one thing more. what to do you mean by non-us citizen in your post.
great work , paul. thanks once again for inviting godfather.
bye , simon.

[paul wheaton]

Rob,
Nobody seems to have the nerve to disable the "simonr" account. So I guess he is an exception to the rule.
Simon,
The moderators and admins here have diligently been deleting references to questions we know were on the pre-October-4th exam. I take it we can stop deleting those references because now those questions are no longer on the exam. Is that correct?

[simonr]

Er woops, have I committed a faux pas?
I'm guessing that I didn't register in the "proper way"
I'll try to fix that sometime soon...
Oh, and Marcus, yes, I'm an ex-pat Brit. Raised in Sheffield, schooling in a small town in Yorkshire called Pocklington, University in Sheffield for a couple of years (wow, was Mechanical Engineering a bad choice!) then to Cambridge for a while as a software engineer, that's were I got into teaching, and eventually joined Sun in Camberley in mid '95. I spent three months in Milpitas, CA when we wrote the exam - gosh, four years ago I guess. Then over here (Broomfield, CO ) - permanently I hope - in early '98.
Cheers,
Simon

Originally posted by Rob Levo:
Hey Paul, no message about the proper name rule for your hero? LOL

[Viji Bharat]

Simon:
Can't believe that we are seeing Simon's posts!! Thanks to Paul and others at Javaranch who have made this possible.
I am curious to know what your score was when you gave the exam a few yrs ago..

[chetan nain]

simon,
you look cool in sunglasses.......

[paul wheaton]

Simon,
If you choose to create a new account, click on "register" and then use the name "Simon Roberts".

[Philip Heller]

I spoke to Simon today, and he told me about this great virtual saloon full of nice people who like our book. So I thought I'd browsey on in and say hi.

[Viji Bharat]

Can you believe this? Two of three authors of RHE have visited Javaranch and submitted their posts. Thanks for the great book which has been used by many for SCJP preparation.

[paul wheaton]

Wow! Mr. Heller, I don't suppose you are working somewhere here in Broomfield too, are you?

[Ajith Kallambella]

Wow...I'm awestruck!!
Hello Mr.Heller. I just want to say "Thank you for your wonderful book that has helped so many people in getting certified".
( Please tell me you don't work with Paul!! )
Ajith

[paul wheaton]

What's the matter Ajith? Jealous?

[Anonymous]

While it is nice to have evidence that Heller and Roberts are actually real people, I think it is important to remember that their certification guide exists to help explain the complexity they themselves have created. I don't know how much thanks they deserve for that.
Heller and Roberts help write the exam, remember.

[DD]

WOW!!!
I knew that coming regularly to this forum would be good for me....
it just turned better
Hello Phillip.....it is great to see both you and Simon taking the time out to visit here....
its a big dose of motivation to aspirant Java Examinees like me

A great pleasure to be reading your posts
-Deb
p.s. Paul...I don't know about Ajith...but there are a lot of other people around who are real jealous

[Ajith Kallambella]

Er..jealous? Me?? No...I am not jealous. It is just that the text here appears green for some reason

Ajith

[paul wheaton]

Oliver,
If the exam were easy, it would be worthless.
I didn't find it complicated. I found it to be detailed and thorough.
Because the exam is not easy to pass, people who have no paid Java experience can get a Java job just by passing the exam. Many employers equate passing the SCJP exam as equal to a year of experience.

[Anonymous]

Sorry. I was trying to be funny. Thought Roberts would like my dry humor but maybe he is one of those "gooey wet englishmen" instead.
I am glad to know they actually exist and are not animatronic creatures, like "maxheadroom" or the pirates at disneyland. They are not simulations on an E10000.
[This message has been edited by Oliver Fiktishous (edited October 24, 2000).]

[paul wheaton]

Now I feel like and ass for raining on your parade.
This medium can be tough at times.
Next time, how about a smiley face so that thick clods like me can know the score.

[Kathy Cowgirl Kozel]

Well howdy all! : ) It's been such a long time since I've visited, but with Simon and Phil and Marcus all in here I just had to jump in too. I'm workin' in Colorado here with Simon and now Paul shows up in the very same building... stirring up trouble as always!
Hope you folks here are still havin' fun roundin' up the cows and studying (or celebrating afterwards) for the exam.
Stay tuned for some hot rumours on the Architect certification...
And by the way, this cowgirl might just get off her saddle-weary rear and tell a few more campfire stories sometime soon.
Hope ya'll remember not to squat with yer spurs on
-the cowgirl

[erich brant]

I hope it is true that roberts, heller and kozel are writting
a book on The new Java Architech tests (all 3 I hope).
This to me is great news. Keep writing hard!
Also, do you work at Sun M. Paul Wheaton?
Question:
Can I get the new mock test on the java exam book
and the new chapters at a discount because I have the original book?
Any website to verify that i have the book so it gives me a
psswd to download new material for free?
I have one suggestion: Please tell sun that a jsp/servlet/xml
e-commerce certification should be created to make JEE more
popular for e-commerce and server-side programming.
(I do not like ASP and vbscript! or the Dark Empire)
//////--------New-Message-----/////////
One suggestion for all writers of now and future books on all the java certifications: It would be very very helpful to have UML diagrams of code in the books especially on the developer programming project and the
java enterprise programming project.
/////--please----read-------////////////
[This message has been edited by erich brant (edited October 26, 2000).]

[paul wheaton]

Yes, I am currently working a contract at Sun.
Discount book: Most publishers seem to be pretty cool about that sort of thing. But you would have to contact them directly.

[Preety Agarwal]

Dear Paul,Marcus,Mr.Simon,Mr Philip
Its very seldom to see such posts in a forum. This is very great.Thanks Java Ranch for this special forum for all of us.
Good work always payts off.
I would like to request Mr. Simon,Mr. Heller to participate actively in the forum for developers and architecht section. Which really needs input from you all. Paul the research forum i discussed with you would really be very effective if you can get these wonderful people to suggest on a regular basis. I am not sure how to start the forum. Please advice.
But I really hope Mr. Simon Mr. Phillip would give A SERIOUS THOUGHT TO help people like me who find very hard to get good ideas for reserach.
Its a really wonderful Diwali this year.
Preety Agrwal
[e-mail]

[paul wheaton]

Preety,
Pop on over to the JavaRanch forum and help me to understand your ideas for a new forum.

[Philip Heller]

Good morning everyone!
To answer a few questions that came up yesterday:
I don't work for Sun (I'm independent) and I don't
live in Broomfield I live in Mountain View,
and I'm taking a few months to finish the first draft
of my first novel. So I won't be involved in any new
Java book projects for a while. BUT ... Simon and I
recently finished a book called "Java 2 Exam Notes",
which ought to be out in about a month.
The novel consumes most of my time and energy, so I
can only participate in forums in a limited way, but I'm
delighted to pop in from time to time and offer whatever I
have to offer.
Anybody going to Comdex in Las Vegas next month? I'll be
giving a 2-day seminar on preparing for the Programmer's
Exam. If you happen to be in town, come on by and say Hi.
Gotta go. See you soon, and thanks for being nice!
Ciao for now,
Phil