Struggling with java

Shicky · 19 Nov 2007 at 19:15

Started this at uni in october and all was going pretty well till last week when i found it difficult and then this week i found impossible, completely didnt understand how to do some of the things i was being asked and the solutions were stuff i hadnt really seen before.

So basically im intending to do a lot of little tutorials and use all the resources i can, so has anybody got any good ones out there?

*I do realise this is an easy language but im not an idiot and know i'll grasp it with a bit more work.

suarve · 19 Nov 2007 at 19:50

I definately wouldn't say Java is an easy language to get to grips with, but i supposed it depends on your background.

Anyways, i definately definately recommend reading the w3 schools tutorial as starting point and go from there.

Gavstar · 19 Nov 2007 at 20:16

Have a go with the official tutorial, it's pretty good: http://java.sun.com/javase/reference/tutorials.jsp

Shicky · 19 Nov 2007 at 20:38

Cheers guys will defo give them a go

Any others out there? What about books? I have Big Java and another book i forget the name of for my course 'Fundamentals of Programming in Java' by someone, which i think is entirely crap and leaves out any real detail the user might need.

Wizardskills · 20 Nov 2007 at 22:46

Java isn't to bad to learn. The thing with java is a lot of common methods are programed into it so you dont have to code them yourself. The above mentioned tutorials are a good place to start, however the text book can sometimes help (by giving you the answer or by pointing you in the right direction). Also looking in the Java API can also lead to some interesting discoveries.

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/

or

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/

I cant remember the name of the text book i had to get in the first year but it was quite good and it came with a CD of example code and exercises. It may be worth taking a trip to the uni's library :O

Cake · 21 Nov 2007 at 15:47

I had to use this book at uni. It's pretty good for learning the basics. There's a lot of focus on OO design.

Wizardskills · 22 Nov 2007 at 13:24

Ah ok found the book that i used

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Objects-Fir...=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195737848&sr=1-4

SiriusB · 22 Nov 2007 at 14:01

Wizardskills said:
Ah ok found the book that i used

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Objects-Fir...=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195737848&sr=1-4

Excellent book. I used it at Uni too

Shicky · 25 Nov 2007 at 18:05

suarve said:
I definately wouldn't say Java is an easy language to get to grips with, but i supposed it depends on your background.

Anyways, i definately definately recommend reading the w3 schools tutorial as starting point and go from there.

Have they removed it or something? Cant find a java one, just JavaScript?

*currently working through the sun tutorial, anyone know of any other decent ones?

RobH · 25 Nov 2007 at 18:22

You want the Sun Java tutorial, W3 schools is JavaScript which is a completely unrelated language.

Wizardskills said:
Ah ok found the book that i used

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Objects-Fir...=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195737848&sr=1-4

I also confirm this, the 3rd edition is out now too. It's what we used at Uni and they have their own Java development environment (BlueJ) which is really useful and lets you see how the programs work. BlueJ may not be as powerful as the propper IDE's such as NetBeans and Eclipse but it has features that they lack and is great for learning (object workbench, simple debugger, visual object inspection, ability to manually involke methods at runtime etc.).

I still use BlueJ for testing out concepts as it's so easy to test out classes and call methods.

Shicky · 25 Nov 2007 at 20:15

cheers RobH, i'll work through a good few tutorials and see where im at, if im still struggling i may just pickup that book. Need 70% in all modules to get in the masters course, got good enough grades but they screwed me!