java Book

viperlogic

hi

my gf is looking to start learning java, was wondering do ye know any good books or sites or even ebooks. she has no experience in programming.

thx

tk123

java.sun.com - it has loads of tutorials and you can download java from there too!

davej

"Thinking in Java" is one of the best books out there for beginners. It's available to download for free from here:

http://www.mindview.net/Books/TIJ/

You can also buy it from amazon etc...

davej

Sarunas

hehe, i was going to recomend that one too (im a ca1 dcu student). Charlie Daly (our programming lecturer) recommends _computing concepts with java 2 essentials (3rd ed)_.

Programming cannot be learned by book (sometimes i wish it could be), you need to practice and lots of reading the code.

As of a tutorials, just google for it, there're plenty floating around.

talos

You can try this one

Enygma

I think the Oreilly Books are always top class.
http://java.oreilly.com

lukin

When I started learning java from scratch I bought "Deitel & Deitel Java How To Program". The Fifth edition is out now,I paid €66 in easons for it,dunno if it's cheaper anywhere on the web. You get a CD with it that has all the programs that are in the book and some free software including the JDK Compiler.
If your girlfriend really want to go to town viperlogic, she could buy the Solutions Book for the deitel book as well. It has some (not all mind) of the solutions for the exercises that are at the end of the each chapter of the deitel book.

IronMan

Yes the free ebook Thinking in Java is really really good, and costs well nothing. I learned more about the fundamentals of Java and its power from that book, than I did from many others I used to borrow from the college library, by etc.

madramor

i'm programming in java for six years and I still refer back
to this tutorial, you can download the whole thing

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/index.html

also

get her to register at
http://forums.java.sun.com/
for advice and problem solving

the java programming job market is one of the toughtest to crack

madramor

also a lot of lecturers learn java as a second or third programming language,
after they learned all about OO design principles so the books they recommend
are not always best for beginners. Sometimes lecturers assume you know too much and don't teach the basics correctly
(i was never a big fan of charlie dalys teaching skills)

get her to use http;//ww.netbeans.org this is the fastest way to get writing
code
just install j2sdk1.4.2_05 and then install netbeans3.6
(there are some new language features in jdk1.5 but it is only a week
old and 1.4 is the most commonly used)

Hobbes

Personally if you are starting for the very first time I would recommend you stay away from the IDE's until you get the basics. This would be..

HelloWorld app
Compiling
Running

After that go to an IDE. But some of the IDE's hand hold too much and you can skip over what you should be learning. That said Eclipse is best IMHO.

clearz

Hobbes wrote:

Personally if you are starting for the very first time I would recommend you stay away from the IDE's until you get the basics. This would be..

HelloWorld app
Compiling
Running

After that go to an IDE. But some of the IDE's hand hold too much and you can skip over what you should be learning. That said Eclipse is best IMHO.

Dam straight, I have been programming java for four years now and have never used an IDE. Give me Textpad and a compiler anyday. Although GUI programming can be made a lot less teedious by using an IDE. I started of with "Deitel & Deitel Java How To Program". There are easier to read books out there but this book covers everything a beginner should know.

If 66 euro is over your budget you pick an earlier edition of the book on Amazon for less than a tenner. Nothing much has changed in java in the last few years that a beginner needs to work about.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130125075/qid=1097077488/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-6743766-9138862

clearz

enen better get it from America

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130125075/qid%3D1097077488/ref%3Dsr%5F8%5Fxs%5Fap%5Fi1%5Fxgl/103-7459553-0043864

About 1.50 Dollors + around $10 for postage.

madramor

every professional company uses IDEs

IDEs do compile and run code

developers design and write code
if you want to set paths and config servers
become a sys. admin.

when i first started i knew how to write great c++ code
but had a hard time getting it compiled without using an IDE
although java is a lot easier to get going

i recommended an ide as I find the best way to learn programming
is to write code

DiabloTM0

lukin wrote:

When I started learning java from scratch I bought "Deitel & Deitel Java How To Program". The Fifth edition is out now,I paid €66 in easons for it,dunno if it's cheaper anywhere on the web. You get a CD with it that has all the programs that are in the book and some free software including the JDK Compiler.
If your girlfriend really want to go to town viperlogic, she could buy the Solutions Book for the deitel book as well. It has some (not all mind) of the solutions for the exercises that are at the end of the each chapter of the deitel book.

does anyone else own that book? if so please pm me i would like to take a look at some of the solutions

martinoc

madramor wrote:

every professional company uses IDEs

yes, when they want to do something quick and dirty. For real work, they use something like ant along with cvs.

madramor wrote:

IDEs do compile and run code

Yes, but most are useless for running test suites and the like.

madramor wrote:

developers design and write code

and also test and verify code

madramor wrote:

if you want to set paths and config servers
become a sys. admin.

If you can't set paths and configure servers, then how are you going to test your code (especially with J2EE)

madramor wrote:

when i first started i knew how to write great c++ code
but had a hard time getting it compiled without using an IDE
although java is a lot easier to get going

This demonstrates perfectly the point raised earlier in this thread. IDEs spoil you so much that you end up not knowing even the most basic tasks

madramor wrote:

i recommended an ide as I find the best way to learn programming
is to write code

There is a lot more to programming than just writing code. Google unit testing and testing in general to find more info.

Hobbes

martinoc wrote:

yes, when they want to do something quick and dirty. For real work, they use something like ant along with cvs.

Which can be used within IDEs. Certainly Eclipse.

Yes, but most are useless for running test suites and the like.

Again not true. Again, Eclipse runs test scripts fine.

This demonstrates perfectly the point raised earlier in this thread. IDEs spoil you so much that you end up not knowing even the most basic tasks

Which is the main reason. If you are starting off you have to learn the absolute basics. After you are used to that, then move to an IDE. Also when you pick an IDE learn it well.

Another book for your bookshelf is "The pragmatic programmer". Very handy to have.

madramor

Originally Posted by madramor
every professional company uses IDEs

martinoc wrote:

yes, when they want to do something quick and dirty. For real work, they use something like ant along with cvs.

ant is used to compile and deploy code, it does not help you do your main job
as a developer ie(write code) to write code you need to view the code you
are writing so you use an ide

cvs is used to store versions of code. you check a piece of code out of the
cvs system and work on it in your ide.

Originally Posted by madramor
IDEs do compile and run code

martinoc wrote:

Yes, but most are useless for running test suites and the like.

most ides now code with junit build in to test your code.when you use correct
design you can test each section of code seperately.so when you create a
section of code you also generate its junit test

Originally Posted by madramor
developers design and write code

martinoc wrote:

and also test and verify code

you alway get somebody else (ie a tester) to test your code as, if you do it
yourself it often happens that you create incomplete test because you know
the code to well

Originally Posted by madramor
if you want to set paths and config servers
become a sys. admin.

martinoc wrote:

If you can't set paths and configure servers, then how are you going to test your code (especially with J2EE)

you can deploy your code from the ide.
to create j2ee apps you create a war file,paths and configs are to do with
each server, war files can run on many platforms and application servers.
war files are created so you can drop then into any appserver, and leave all
the path and config stuff to the system adminstrators

Originally Posted by madramor
when i first started i knew how to write great c++ code
but had a hard time getting it compiled without using an IDE
although java is a lot easier to get going

martinoc wrote:

This demonstrates perfectly the point raised earlier in this thread. IDEs spoil you so much that you end up not knowing even the most basic tasks

IDEs are the next stage of compilers

martinoc wrote:

There is a lot more to programming than just writing code. Google unit testing and testing in general to find more info.

and another million things you have to learn

martinoc

Quote:
Yes, but most are useless for running test suites and the like.




Again not true. Again, Eclipse runs test scripts fine.

You'll notice that I qualified my statement with most. But I agree with you that Eclipse is among the very few that can do the job well.

I'd love to get into a huge argument here, but, I'm afraid we're already a little off topic. I'm not saying IDEs in general are bad, just bad to begin with. When you do pick up an IDE, make sure its a good one like Eclipse, and learn how and exactly where an IDE makes life easier (so you don't take it for granted later)

bambam

I believe that an IDE is a necessity for productity. But for learning you should use a simple text editor and command line compilation. This way you will really learn the fundamentals of the java libraries and concepts such as classpath / dependecies. Bear in mind that it will be labourious and frustrating but you will appreciate it later on in your career. Even the simple fact of not having auto code completion will (hopefully) force you to learn what's available in the jdk's libraries.

Same applies to J2ee deployment, if you manually edit your deployment descriptors and manually deploy you'll really get a feeling for what you are trying to accomplish.

And take heart that when you are comfortable with and understand all this menial work that there are IDE's out there which will do a lot of this for you through the use of wizards (eg, WSAD for Websphere app server)

jessy

its a decent tutorial(if ya dont want to pay for a book)
http://www.ibiblio.org/javafaq/javatutorial.html

Skud

If you a looking for a decent all in one scripting program (highlighs all source code to make it easy to read) scriptwork from softlite.net is a handy program to have. Does alot of languages, html, javascript, java , C++ etc. There's some tags in there too i'm sure so might be handy for her to learn the tags like public private stuff (my knowledge of java is limited atm)... I find this program handy anyway. I have version 4.0 which was free cause they released 5.0 and current version is 5.1 (trial)