Stupid question about Java

Greenlizard0 · 30 Oct 2007 at 17:30

Righteo, I'm starting to learn about Java, and I'm struggling at the moment, as my lecture notes and textbooks seem to be very apt at discussing the subject, but don't actually give me what the phrases mean.

Like if you were learning French, you'd need an English/French dictionary.

Can anybody e.g. suggest something to me, or a link please?

Kind regards

Presh

Dj_Jestar · 30 Oct 2007 at 17:33

Any examples of phrases/words you are having difficulty with? Just to grab an example of "level"

voodooflux · 30 Oct 2007 at 17:51

Have you had a look at the Sun Java Turorial ?

Greenlizard0 · 30 Oct 2007 at 21:08

An example of level? Um, ultra n00bian beginner mate

I have a had a brief gander at it, butnot really found it that helpful for that I'm looking for..

Inquisitor · 30 Oct 2007 at 21:24

Try Googling for "Java glossary"; should come up with some useful stuff, e.g. Sun's own glossary. Alternatively, if there's a term or concept you don't understand then you could try looking it up on Wikipedia.

Dj_Jestar · 30 Oct 2007 at 23:23

I meant example of words/terms/phrases you do not understand

If you had of said "Boolean", it is far different from "Composite Controller Pattern" etc.

voodooflux · 31 Oct 2007 at 08:46

If the Sun Java Tutorial isn't for you, then if you can stand the embarrassment of the tademark yellow cover it might be worth picking up one of the Java for Dummies books (there are a couple, one aimed at absolute newbies I think). "Head First Java" might be worth a look as well.

Greenlizard0 · 1 Nov 2007 at 22:50

I've been thinking about those "X For Dummies" books...hmm...

Greenlizard0 · 6 Nov 2007 at 17:29

Uh, I am still very much struggling with it as subject here is the yellow book the way forward. All the tutorials seem to start off with the presumption that the user has experience in the subject, which I don't have at all.

I have Java Java Java by Morelli and Objects first with Java but both jump (in my opinion) straight into the deep end.

Argh, can somebody please help

voodooflux · 6 Nov 2007 at 17:39

Have you done any/much programming before in any language? If not then it might be an idea to start with something like this:

toString · 6 Nov 2007 at 17:50

It's a lot easier to state the exact problem you're having, rather than just a general 'help with java' question. I don't think anyone is going to explain java from beginning to end... (that's what lecturers do...

)

Greenlizard0 · 6 Nov 2007 at 23:08

KingAdora said:
It's a lot easier to state the exact problem you're having, rather than just a general 'help with java' question. I don't think anyone is going to explain java from beginning to end... (that's what lecturers do... )

Lol of course, I do appreciate that. I ordered the book for dummies, I think that'll hopefully give us what I need.

When I dabbled in HTML and Javascript years ago it was fairly easy to get it going, but Java itself, I just don't understand how things link together. In essence I am sort of getting used to the new vocab, but I don't understand what the words really imply they can do if that makes any sense. I'm being given projects to do everyweek, and as they're getting more and more complex I fee that I'm getting further away from it all. Ugh, may need to just have an early night and have a bash at it this weekend me thinks...

RobH · 6 Nov 2007 at 23:39

I'd highly recommend 'Objects First with Java' if you are new to Java and OO programming, it teaches you the concepts along with the code rather than just the code first. With Java you deal with classes and objects weather you like it or not so it's best to learn about them first. The book is based around using the BlueJ program which is an excellent learning tool for Java. The book has many great examples and also gets you to modify them and experiance the effects, it's basically a foundation Java course in a book.

JIMA · 6 Nov 2007 at 23:40

Hi,

Another good way to learn is by looking at lots of examples of code, whether complete programs or just snippets. Some of the "cookbook" books around are worth a look as they contain short, to the point, and well-commented pieces of code. Don't focus too much on the syntax, more on what's going on, how the program logic fits together, how classes are used etc.

Write lots of simple programs, doing things such as just setting variables, calling methods, creating classes etc. I think it'll help you get an understanding of how things behave rather than writing larger programs to start with.

Hope that helps.

Jim

Chaos · 6 Nov 2007 at 23:50

The book Java How to Program seems to get recommended a lot.

Greenlizard0 · 14 Nov 2007 at 17:36

Ugh, this is going to sound really stupid now - but what exactly does the term attributes of a method or attributes of a class actually mean? :confused:

heavy-rotation · 14 Nov 2007 at 18:05

"attributes of a method" - the arguments you pass to the method (and maybe the value it returns)... I wouldn't choose the word "attributes" usually to describe this though.

"attributes of a class" - the public properties or "fields" of the class.

Greenlizard0 · 15 Nov 2007 at 17:10

SiriusB · 15 Nov 2007 at 18:11

RobH said:
I'd highly recommend 'Objects First with Java' if you are new to Java and OO programming, it teaches you the concepts along with the code rather than just the code first. With Java you deal with classes and objects weather you like it or not so it's best to learn about them first. The book is based around using the BlueJ program which is an excellent learning tool for Java. The book has many great examples and also gets you to modify them and experiance the effects, it's basically a foundation Java course in a book.

Ahh good ole BlueJ! Both BlueJ and the book are excellent. It explains everything in simple terms and gives you examples to see it in action. BlueJ is only meant for learning but it is very good at it. Once you are more experienced you can move on to something like Netbeans and beyond.

benjo plz. · 15 Nov 2007 at 18:23

Greenlizard0 said:
Ok I'm writing my first program and for the life of me I can't figure what the one error is going on about? Can somebody help please? It's where the load of X's are above - and what Netbeans is telling me is " 'else' without 'if' for that whole statement ". Argh - why is it doing this *cries*, and what does it mean/want me to do?

For a start, you have two inputs, you're initialising it twice, secondly, you have string [], it should be String [], System needs to have a capital s, dunno what Driver is?