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

Wrox Press

[dnoyeb]

I started Visual C++ 5 with a book called "Beginning Visual C++ 5" by Ivor Horton from Wrox Press. When I started in Java I bought a book titled "Beginning Java" by Ivor Horton.

I would start there. Java is really straight forward OO language. The only issue you will have coming from C++ is to let go of destructors and realize Java does not use them. Many from C++ take about 6 months to stop tryng to make a finalizer into a destructor.

Thinking in Java

[yanyan]

Thinking in Java is nice. And it's free. http://www.mindview.net/Books/TIJ/

Thinking in Java

[lurker-11]

Thinking in Java is a good book on the Java language. You can read it online at the author's web site: http://www.mindview.net/Books/TIJ/

Try javabat.com

[icknay]

For basic coding practice, try the free http://javabat.com/ -- it has little coding problems (logic, strings, arrays, recursion) that run right in the browser, so you get immediate feedback. It's great for building skill in the basics, but it's no substitute for building larger programs. Disclaimer: I built it

Re:In the same boat...

[SirLurksAlot]

Ok, you're missing my point, which is that Eclipse and Tomcat have absolutely nothing to do with each other. You don't need to "switch" from one to the other because they are used for entirely different purposes. Yes, they're both tools, but it doesn't make any sense to tell the parent that you switched because one is used to write code and the other is used to serve applications. It makes you sound like you don't know what you are talking about, and will only confuse new developers.

Re:Don't

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who's worked in Java with some of those 100.000 guys in India, they may know Java, but most don't know java well. The vast majority of programmers either here or there can solve a problem, but not consider the security risks in their solution, nor necessarily come up with an elegant design for doing so.

Having said that, I've used hibernate (once, to get it set up and configured, it works well enough we didn't have to go back and change it), struts/struts2, and tiles. Most of these are XML configuration rather than coding. If you can do make files, and handle any markup language, these won't be a problem.

It sounds like your main concern is learning java itself. Since you know C/C++ the syntax and conceptualizations won't jump out and bite you. I'd recommend grabbing a project that interests you (or that needs to be done), and just doing it. Use Eclipse, its tools will make your life MUCH easier (unless you like coding c/c++ in a vi-like environment, in which case by all means use emacs/vi/editor of choice). I'll probably get slammed for saying this, but learning java isn't any harder than learning VB, (easier than C/C++ which is what I'm currently picking up), it uses a different namespace, and slightly different approach, that's all. If you're a competent programmer (and from your post, it sounds like you are) then it's just going to take some time/hard work to get used to the new language's quirks.

Fail

[patio11]

You need to encapsulate that in a class. And your main method signature is wrong -- needs to take a String array as an argument, or else the program will say "No such method found (main)" and die.

Honestly, its almost like no one on Slashdot programs in Java some days... ;)

Re:I beg to disagree

[mrops]

Doing java dev for more than 10 years, I think this is a valid question. Java is not about the core J2SE anymore, I was fortunate that java evolved along with my career, so i picked things up as they came to market. Further google is excellent if you know what you are looking for, however in this case, the author does not even know what he is looking for.

Now to answer the question.

First read Just Java by Peter van der Linden (if I spelled the name correct). Excellent book.

Get Eclipse IDE and learn jdbc, JSP/servlets, and struts preferable in that order. Except for struts Just Java should give you a primer on each, struts has a decent website with tutorials.

I would skip EJB/J2EE for now and jump to spring and later hibernate. You will find great tutorials on their websites.

Somewhere along the process also introduce yourself to JNDI, particularly JNDI when it talks to LDAP, this is a given when u are coding an enterprise app.

At this point you would know enough to do a decent job as a java developer, more importantly you would know what to do next.

This is what I can think of on labour day long weekend :)

Re:I beg to disagree

[morgan_greywolf]

You have to start somewhere. Just like if you wanted to learn PHP, the PEAR toolkit, and Drupal or some other 'framework' for Web applications in PHP, or whatever. Or, as an example I'm more immediately familiar with would be knowing Python, mod_python, Django, WSGI and a database like MySQL or Postgres.

You start by learning Python. Then you move on to MySQL. And then you might learn mod_python and finally WSGI and then Django. But you have to start with one concept and move on the next and the next and the next until you have enough knowledge to cover what you need to know.

So with Java, you might start with Java, move on to Netbeans, etc. Learn any frameworks, etc. You start with one thing and move on to the next. YOu need to learn increasing levels of complexity. SO obviously you need to have a grounding in Java before you learn Swing. And Java basics before J2EE. And so forth.

Re:I beg to disagree

[Doctor Memory]

1. Get a copy of Head First Java .
2. Download the latest version of Java.
3. Download Netbeans or Eclipse (I prefer Netbeans, but I use Eclipse at the office, and I don't have a problem recommending either one). Make sure you get a version that includes either Glassfish (Netbeans) or Tomcat (Eclipse), so you can run some servlets.
4. Start going through the book. You'll learn the Java syntax and conventions in the first part, then learn about web development. Since you've got web development experience, you can probably skip a lot of the intro (web apps use the HTTP request/response cycle, are stateless unless you stick stuff in the session, etc.) and dig into some JSPs.
5. Once you can get data from the browser to the server, pick up JDBC and stick it in the database. If you've used ODBC with VB, then you'll have no trouble picking up JDBC.
6. Pick up a Spring book (I'll recommend Spring in Action) and learn about dependency injection. It's a pretty simple concept, but you'll be amazed what you can do with it.

That should give you enough to get started and maybe even get your first Java gig. Hibernate's good to learn, too, but on most of the projects I've been on, you don't use it in day-to-day development (that is, you don't have to reconfigure or redeploy anything, unless your data model changes). With Spring, just about everything you write will require that you modify a context file or two, so you need to know what's going on.