I couldn't agree with you more araneae, personally I am tired of seeing the statements where it is hinted that you need to have done xyz otherwise you have no business calling yourself a (good) programmer. I know people who haven't touched those books and they may be considered the so-called "bad" java programmers, yet that is not the case...these people know the intricacies of J2EE, have read & understood the many JSRs and have in-depth knowledge of the many java libraries and frameworks..yet they are not traditional computer scientists with CS backgrounds