Where did you hear of the ranch ?

[Deepak Bala]

I saw a mention of it in one of Bert and Kathy's books and here I am.

[Freddy Wong]

Same here

[Sayak Banerjee]

I was informed by a friend of mine.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

My publisher told me about some kind of book promotion thing they do here. When I showed up they threw a sack over my head, dragged me out to the barn, and I've been here ever since.

[Merlin Jacob]

While I was preparing for SCJP, a friend of mine told me.

- Merlin J

[Max Habibi]

I got Ernie's sack thing.

[Ashok Mash]

At the local watering hole of course!

In fact, back in 2000, Tony Alecia mentioned ranch in some other forum, saying he is moving here, and I thought if its good for him, I have to check it out! A belated thanks to Tony!

PS: I am quite pleased with my own memory to be honest!

[Hussein Baghdadi]

I don't remember!
But it was while I was preparing for the SCWCD...

[Burkhard Hassel]

Ranch?
What ranch?

[Jaikiran Pai]

This pushed me here.

[Andrew Monkhouse]

Back when I was going for various certifications, I started using some book (I don't even recall the name of it now) that mentioned the Ranch. I was slogging my way through it, but every so often I would go into the city to see what other books there were - I would just peruse them, since they didn't seem much better, but I did notice that in the backs of almost all of them, they mentioned the Ranch as being one of the better sites. Then I found Kathy & Bert's book, which I loved, and it had more than a passing reference to the Ranch. So I figured with all these people saying how good it is, why not take a look?

Big mistake. That was years ago, and I haven't been able to extricate myself.

Regards, Andrew

[Jim Yingst]

[Burkhard]: Ranch?
What ranch?

Same here. I came looking for a saloon. And I still feel that was a case of false advertising.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Google. I was looking for an answer to a technical question and found the answer here.

[raj vin]

thru my Friend, end of Oct 2003

[Bear Bibeault]

Geez, it's been so long I have no recollection. But I can't imagaine that it would have been anything other than the same as Jeanne's response.

[Vassili Vladimir]

Hi,

Google told me about the great JavaRanch when i was preparing for my SCJP

Best regards ...

[Tony Alicea]

It was 1999 and I was reading some site about pork chops. Electric I think, when it changed names?

Seriously now there was a Java site in 1999 that was completely unattended where people started to break the law and post some actual questions and answers to the Sun Java Certification exams and a lot of us lost interest.

I remember personally receiving an email from Paul Wheaton asking me to join the staff over at his site to which I had posted briefly before (that's this site, JavaRanch).

I promptly accepted.

During those days I was voluntarily unemployed learning JavaScrpt, HTML 4 (i.e. Dynamic HTML) and especially Java, after being programming professionally for more than 20 years. Always, until then, in procedural, "structured -and functional- programming". Never object oriented.

Until then.

This site helped me in my Java training up to and including getting a 98% score on the (J2SE 1.2) Certification exam.

About a week after that, I had two interviews the same day followed by the corresponding two job offers.

Last March I completed the seventh year at the one I accepted.

For the first years I kept a log of the activities, via posts to Javaranch and before the word 'blog' came along.

[Bert Bates]

from Kathy

[M Easter]

I think around 2000 or 2001 I found the mock certification exam, which I found fascinating. I would do drills while waiting for a build. I should do them even today.

I know a moderator, Fred R, in the meatspace (aka RL). I don't remember if I introduced him to Java R or the other way around. Certainly, he has become a true member of the community whereas I haven't been around in years and have just popped in lately.

[fred rosenberger]

I don't remember if I introduced him to Java R or the other way around.

You told me about it.

[Marc Peabody]

I used to make author-shaped sacks and JavaRanch was my biggest customer.

I think I first heard about it from my wife's cousin. It was so long ago (I was a lurker for years) that I can hardly recall.

[Christophe Verré]

When I started studying for SCWCD, I was looking for some information and found the ranch via Google. I couldn't find the way out
[ July 08, 2007: Message edited by: Satou kurinosuke ]

[Raghavan Muthu]

This seems to be a good and useful whereas we can to get to know the statistics ;-)

I saw a mention of it in one of Bert and Kathy's books and here I am.

I bought Head First Servlets & JSP book first and in which i found it. But i dint think of joining unless i really need it. As some of other ranchers said, Google was having the link to this forum which contained the answer to one of my queries.

Thats when I am with JavaRanch since Apr 2006. Thanks to Google, Kathy and all others who a(we)re being a part of this ocean!

[Chetan Parekh]

google

[Rahul Bhattacharjee]

One of my friends pointed me to Javaranch.

[PRavi kumar]

From my team member

[Peter Rooke]

A book. At first I started with a silly user name :roll: - then I registered for real.

[Paul Clapham]

Some people over on Sun's Java forum were incensed about some changes that had been made to the design of the forum. (This sort of thing happens regularly over there.) "We should go on strike!" they posted. "We should all go to these other forums and post there instead!" So that's what I did.

[Ben Souther]

Google

[David O'Meara]

BEA training course

[Eric Pascarello]

I think I came here from a url in my one websites log. I signed up as A1ien51 CNEUFOs, than signed up as Al Ian, and than changed my name to my real name. I started to answer every single question in the HTML/JavaScript forum and I still try to do it today, but some other people get in the way! [I think 99% of my posts are in forum #20]

Eric

[Shashi Kant]

I came to know about this from my friend.

[Joe San]

Through the Head First Servlets and JSP book!

[Eugene Abarquez]

From a former project leader from a former job back in 2006. Like everybody else, I never found my way out.