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

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.