What's the best way to learn Java?

[Nancy Myers]

Can anyone recommend a method, CD, or training course that is a good way to
get a quick, solid jumpstart on learning Java? I have programming experience
with COBOL, PL1, SAS, Rexx Execs, TSO clists, ISPF Dialog Manager, HTML,
and I had classes in C, UDB administration, and Oracle years ago.

My 2 cents worth (and what works best for me)....

I'm not familiar with many of the tools that you have experience with...but
this is what I would do:
1. Gain an OOP understanding. There are several books out there and a lot
of people swear by Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java, which is available for
free on the web.
2. Buy a reference manual and go through Sun's documentation and tutorials.
3. Throw yourself in the fire...come up with a project that can benefit
either work or yourself, and have at it...
- if you decide to buy any books, I prefer O'Reilly
4. Once you feel as though you have a decent understanding of Java, pickup a
book or two on Patterns.



"Nancy Myers" <nmyers@cmc.net> wrote in message
news:3aea3dc1$1@news.devx.com...
>
> Can anyone recommend a method, CD, or training course that is a good way
to
> get a quick, solid jumpstart on learning Java? I have programming
experience
> with COBOL, PL1, SAS, Rexx Execs, TSO clists, ISPF Dialog Manager, HTML,
> and I had classes in C, UDB administration, and Oracle years ago.

[J B]

Do some javascript, the syntax is the the same. I have written about 20 small
java programs(classes) now, and none of them do anything I couldn't do in
javascript. heh!

Study OO.
Understand methods, properties and events.
Java is OO, very different from COBOL, HTML.
I too love the O'Reilly books, I have many, the Java one I have is the Java
Examples book, which is most excellent. I bought at 1/2 price bookstore for
17$.

Sun's Java ver. 2 build 1.3 is downloadable from www.sun.com. I use the Windows
version on my Windows 2000 box. Lots of source code. The text files use ascii(10)
instead of ascii(10) and ascii(13) together, so they can be hard to read.
So just open them up in Wordpad, save, then open in Notepad. I wrote a Wscript
file to convert the ascii(10) to a vbCrLf. Heresy to a java programmer but
it helped me read the files quickly.

Don't get intimidated by it, there is a ton of parts to it. And it is only
version 2, so things are bound to change quite a bit over the next few years.


having VB experience helped quite a bit as VB is Object Based.

A class at work used UltraEdit-32 to write the code, but I use good ole notepad.

Regards,
J B

<tony> wrote:
>My 2 cents worth (and what works best for me)....
>
>I'm not familiar with many of the tools that you have experience with...but
>this is what I would do:
>1. Gain an OOP understanding. There are several books out there and a lot
>of people swear by Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java, which is available for
>free on the web.
>2. Buy a reference manual and go through Sun's documentation and tutorials.
>3. Throw yourself in the fire...come up with a project that can benefit
>either work or yourself, and have at it...
>- if you decide to buy any books, I prefer O'Reilly
>4. Once you feel as though you have a decent understanding of Java, pickup
a
>book or two on Patterns.
>
>
>
>"Nancy Myers" <nmyers@cmc.net> wrote in message
>news:3aea3dc1$1@news.devx.com...
>>
>> Can anyone recommend a method, CD, or training course that is a good way
>to
>> get a quick, solid jumpstart on learning Java? I have programming
>experience
>> with COBOL, PL1, SAS, Rexx Execs, TSO clists, ISPF Dialog Manager, HTML,
>> and I had classes in C, UDB administration, and Oracle years ago.
>
>