Java, Where To Start?

I'm a web developer who has design and programming experience. So, VB, ASP, PHP, Coldfusion, Perl, even C and C++ I have in my belt. I also use Dreamweaver and/or do a lot of my HTML/XHTML/JavaScript coding by hand. So, the DOM, DHTML, etc, all good to me and even OOP thinking and design I have when I code. And I even have MySQL and other databases, again, not an issue here. So, my weak point is — Java — I see so many jobs out there with J2EE, Hibernate, Eclipse, Netbeans. Beside the obvious, which is to learn Java the core language, I don't know where else to go from there. There is so much! What should I read? in what order? What software do I require? UML? Swing? I mean, what is the curriculum required for someone to say they are a solid Java developer? Even assuming I have to go through Java itself, what are the good books out there?

Comments

You are Paula!

[Bazman]

And you are brillant!

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The_Brillant_Paula_Bean.aspx

Re:Good place to start...

[Keeper Of Keys]

Is Visual Studio actually written in .NET? Eclipse is... Is IIS written in .NET? Tomcat is.

.NET must have lots going for it if even Sun are writing all their tools in it.

Re:Job or knowledge?

[MillionthMonkey]

Hello World? That's easy!
public interface MessageStrategy {
      public void sendMessage();
}

public abstract class AbstractStrategyFactory {
      public abstract MessageStrategy createStrategy(MessageBody mb);
}

public class MessageBody {
      Object payload;
      public Object getPayload() {
            return payload;
      }
      public void setPayload(Object payload) {
            this.payload = payload;
      }
      public void send(MessageStrategy ms) {
            ms.sendMessage();
      }
}

public class DefaultFactory extends AbstractStrategyFactory {

      private DefaultFactory() {}

      static DefaultFactory instance;

      public static synchronized AbstractStrategyFactory getInstance() {
            if (null==instance) instance = new DefaultFactory();
            return instance;
      }

      public MessageStrategy createStrategy(final MessageBody mb) {
            return new MessageStrategy() {
                  MessageBody body = mb;
                  public void sendMessage() {
                        Object obj = body.getPayload();
                        System.out.println((String)obj);
                  }
            };
      }
}

public class HelloWorld {
      public static void main(String[] args) {
            MessageBody mb = new MessageBody();
            mb.setPayload("Hello World!");
            AbstractStrategyFactory asf = DefaultFactory.getInstance();
            MessageStrategy strategy = asf.createStrategy(mb);
            mb.send(strategy);
      }
}

Re:Job or knowledge?

[glgraca]

You really should use some XML to configure this application.