Study buddy wanted for Java, SQL and Maven.

TenLeftFingers

I'm interested in putting a small group together for learning Java, SQL and Maven. I've done a lot on my own already and am getting very jaded with the solitary study.

I imagine it would work something like this:
We agree on a subject range for a week and maybe even choose a resource.
At the end of the week we meetup on a Google Hangout to discuss. During the week we can ping each other to share breakthroughs or if we get stuck.

If you are interested in doing this please comment below!:)

Meritor

Thats a good initiative..
I have about 10 years of experience in IT (9 years with Java/J2EE)..
Please let me know if I can help you guys.

Dale Parish

I'd be interested in this.

TenLeftFingers

Meritor, that's an incredibly generous offer. Especially given how hard it can be to get time with my own colleagues! Thank you, will definitely take you up on this.

Dale, glad to have you on board. Looks like you're on G+ already so I've circled you assuming this goes ahead. We should set a date to meet - maybe in a week or so that others can join too. Meritor - you may not be interested in joining the hangout, but you're more than welcome. You might be able to advise us.

SimonTemplar

This is a really great idea, especially if there is an experienced "mentor" involved as suggested by Meritor.
However I already have a beginners to intermediate level of Java / SQL. I would be more interested in a similar idea but for the Spring / Hibernate / Maven stack

ulinbac

Hi Guys,

Am definitely interested in this.

I already have about 20months SQL experience. I am learning Java atm and hoping to to sit the Java Programmer 1 exam before June.

I am doing this course:

http://mooc.cs.helsinki.fi/programming-part1

to learn Java and finding it good. Let me know what ye think.

Need Maven for work so happy with that too

Meritor

I am not sure whether I can participate in all your hangouts. I am working professional, you can understand my time limits.
However, I'll try to help you offline. I have sent a PM to TenLeftFingers with my personal email address. You can send me invite of Goggle group on that id.

crazy_kenny

I'm interested but not too sure if i have enough experience with java yet. I'm only learning the basics like methods, encapsulation, inheritance etc. at present.

TenLeftFingers

We are looking good. I think a range of experiences is going to be unavoidable. But if we agree on a study program (eg, a certification book, tutorial etc) then that will keep us in sync. If there's a problem, we can look at growing the group and breaking into intermediate / advanced or something.

I've sent PM's to everyone who's commented so far so we can connect on Google Plus. Next we need to agree a time to meet. I think we should keep it to the same time every week for simplicity. Weekends are best for me personally but whatever we can get most agreement on. Monday and Thursday are completely out.

After we agree a time, I'd suggest we meet to decide:

• What we're going to study first
• What resource to use
• How to expose what we're doing somewhat so we can collaborate and allow Meritor a view without drowing him in emails (hopefully something better than email, but maybe that's fine?).

By the way - my background is: I have a B.Eng in Software Engineering from way back in 2003. I ran my own unrelated business for ten years. I did a year as a PHP developer for a startup and now I'm back at my beloved - if almost forgotten - Java for a multinational company. I've just passed the OCA Programmer I exam.

My work entails Spring, JEE (especialy EJB3), SVN, Maven and SQL. Maybe at the first meeting we can talk about priorities and how we might organise ourselves. This might take more than one session.

I hope that sounds okay to everyone - if not, please shout!

ulinbac

Hey Guys,

Any movement on the above?

TenLeftFingers

ulinbac wrote: »

Hey Guys,

Any movement on the above?

There are three of us now, excluding meritor since he's a special case

If nobody wants to suggest a day then I would say let's go for Sunday some time. ulinbac, what time is good for you?
<edit>But not this Sunday - I have college. But from then on I'll be available</edit>

ulinbac

TenLeftFingers wrote: »

There are three of us now, excluding meritor since he's a special case

If nobody wants to suggest a day then I would say let's go for Sunday some time. ulinbac, what time is good for you?
<edit>But not this Sunday - I have college. But from then on I'll be available</edit>

Hey TFL,

I'm form the South but based in the North atm. Don't mind coming down to Dublin after work some day. Where is everyone else so we can sort a location? Not around this weekend either, bros stag

TenLeftFingers

ulinbac wrote: »

Hey TFL,

I'm form the South but based in the North atm. Don't mind coming down to Dublin after work some day. Where is everyone else so we can sort a location? Not around this weekend either, bros stag

Have a good stag then the meeting place is a Google Plus Hangout, so online.

TheSetMiner

I'd be interested in joining. I have a fairly handy grasp of Java just from college stuff. I am better at Python and Javascript though. Definitely interested in mySQL but as of yet, I have done very little of that!

Anyway no harm in expressing my interest and we can see how it plays out I guess whether or not it makes sense for me to join!

TenLeftFingers

TheSetMiner wrote: »

I'd be interested in joining. I have a fairly handy grasp of Java just from college stuff. I am better at Python and Javascript though. Definitely interested in mySQL but as of yet, I have done very little of that!

Anyway no harm in expressing my interest and we can see how it plays out I guess whether or not it makes sense for me to join!

PM me your G+ details TheSetMiner and I'll add you to the group. We are meeting on Sunday, March 3rd on an online face-to-face meeting. Let's say 12pm.

TenLeftFingers

I've set up a group (aka Community) on google plus for the weekends meeting. I've sent invitations to the five members we have so far and since I'm spending this week setting up my JVM, WebServer, IDE etc on a virtual machine I thought we could use that group in the mean-time in case anyone is having trouble getting their setup working.

We can probably stay in touch better there from now on. Anyone else who finds this thread, please get in touch to get added.

See you Sunday @12pm!

ulinbac

Hey TLF,

Have NetBeans set up and running. Anything else we need to install before Sunday?

TenLeftFingers

ulinbac wrote: »

Hey TLF,

Have NetBeans set up and running. Anything else we need to install before Sunday?

Hi ulinbac,

You could install maven from the apache website as well as SQL Developer from the Oracle site.

Besides that, just be thinking of what goals you'd like to achieve. "Java" is a start but more specifically you might want to pass the first certification exam for example. Or if like me you want to learn EJB then a goal will be to complete and understand a tutorial on it. Once we find some things in common we can should be able to get moving pretty quickly.

Maybe at the end we should be able to say, for example, that we've done a chapter on subject X and can complete the exercises. Then we know we can move on. So we're kind of creating our own syllabus.

It's worked for me so far but I'm open to doing it differently too.

The only difficulty will be that EJB will use Spring for example. It's difficult to avoid having overlapping technologies but with Meritor on board if we really get stuck he might be able to guide us.

Ten

ulinbac

Will install Maven and SQl tomorrow. What is EJB?

I have the book for the Java cert and been through it once already as a speed read. Need more indept study next time around. The goal is to pass both Java exams by the end of the year.

I am doing a MOOC course on Java to do some actual coding as there is only so much reading that one can do; as you have to code to learn.

I was thinking, once we get the basics down after a couple of weeks, we code use our new found skill :P to build something useful, what though I don't know.

TenLeftFingers

We have four members on google plus. Don't forget to add yourself to the group so we can do the video chat on Sunday. I'm not sure which three of you haven't joined yet but pm me if you have any issues.

Meritor

TenLeftFingers wrote: »

The only difficulty will be that EJB will use Spring for example. It's difficult to avoid having overlapping technologies but with Meritor on board if we really get stuck he might be able to guide us.

Ten

One correction here Ten.
EJB and Spring are two separate things.
EJB [Enterprise Java Beans] is server-side component architecture.
Spring is a highly configurable java based application framework.
We can use EJB without Spring.
Spring framework really do not need EJB, though Spring provides support to integrate EJB.

Viscosity1

Hi guys,

Would like to be involved in this if there's room for one more.

Have done some java modules and using SQL a little these days. Find it very hard to keep motivated doing MOOCs alone.

My boss keeps telling me to drop the online study/reading text books and to focus on solving problems instead - probably the best way to learn a language.

ulinbac

Hi Viscoscity,

What type of problem do you mean?

Maybe build something?

iwantthat

I would be interested in that. If i can join.

TenLeftFingers

Meritor, thanks for clearing that up a little. At work, they are joined at the hip so to speak but it's even better that we can seperate them (assuming we find tutorial / training that treat them separately).

Everyone, I've PM'd you my email address. Use it to find me on google plus and I will add you to the group and invite you to the Sunday "sermon" I will open the meeting 15 mins early so that if anyone is having trouble connecting we can sort it out in advance. Looking forward to meeting you and getting moving!

swaywme

Hey lads, I am interested in joining this group too. I am fairly new to java. Is that ok ?