Where to start with Java?

Ricki

Ricki

Ricki

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23 Oct 2003
Posts
413
Location
Cornwall
As part of my dissertation I am looking into developing some software to help ease engineering (specifically civil engineering – the degree I am doing) tasks on site and to allow increase of speed and accuracy of data input, retrieval and distribution. I will in particular look into developing a program to run on a PDA.

It was suggested that I learn and use Java for this task – something I am quite willing to do as it has been one of those things I have wanted to learn for a long time. I have done 2 yrs lectured Delphi programming and have used it on and off for a couple more years as well as using all the classic ones like Pascal, Basic etc. I have used html and css for over 8 year, and have also dabbled in php and mySQL and have had to use Matlab as part of my degree (basic level only) – so I am not completely new too programming though it has been a while since I last did any.

My question is this – where to start? Any good reference books to buy? Internet guides? Suggested IDEs? My dissertation doesn’t officially start till October and isn’t handed in till June 09 so I have a decent enough amount of time to learn and implement what I need.
 
Hi mate,

I'd suggest just picking up a book and working through it. Once you have got through it, you can start developing the skills yourself and really the quickest way to get good is to do a lot of programming. Practice makes perfect....(hopefully).

As for an IDE, i wouldn't suggest any when you are starting out, just a text editor and console, but as you get more confident with the language, perhaps use eclipse.
 
MMD said:
Are you sure you're a real student? June 09 and you're thinking about it now?!
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lol, I know, but unless I get a decent dissertation and a decent grade then it'll be 5 years of study, not to mention the horrendous debts I have amassed, wasted!

@RobMunfy
Are there any books in particular you would recommend or have heard are good - there are literally tens of thousands of them out there!

@voodooflux
Is there much difference between Eclipse and NetBeans? Either one more geared towards PDA software development or doesn't it matter with Java being portable across most platforms anyway?
 
Ricki said:
Is there much difference between Eclipse and NetBeans? Either one more geared towards PDA software development or doesn't it matter with Java being portable across most platforms anyway?
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They both have their fans - it's probably best to try each and see which one you prefer. Personally I like Eclipse as I find it more responsive.

I can't give much insight into Java on mobile devices unfortunately as the PDA projects I have been involved with have been on the Windows Mobile platform using either C++ or C# (.NET Compact Framework). A quick google did reveal this EclipseME plugin for J2ME development - might be worth a look.
 
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I'd seriously look at developing for the iPhone, in Objective-c, rather than trying to use java on a mobile platform.
 
JonB said:
I'd seriously look at developing for the iPhone, in Objective-c, rather than trying to use java on a mobile platform.
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Unfortunately I can't really develop for the iPhone solely. The project is aimed at engineers working on site so the mobile devices in question have to be pretty rugged and cheap and whilst the iPhone is a wonderful bit of kit it simply wouldn't last 2 seconds in the field.

Is there a particular problem associated with developing Java on a mobile platform? I was thinking (after suggestions on the "Laptops & PDAs" forum of purchasing an HP iPAQ 214 or similar to test the stuff out on.
 
The iPAQ looks like a decent piece of kit, and while I don't know enough to reliably expand on the relative merits of .NET over Java for mobile development, if you can get your hands on the Standard or Professional versions of Microsoft Visual Studio (the free Express edition doesn't support mobile development unfortunately) then I can recommend considering C# and the .NET Compact Framework to target Windows Mobile devices as a development platform. The toolset makes mobile development a breeze.

There are several ruggedised Windows Mobile devices around (Symbol make several) and third party rugged cases can be purchased for many more devices.
 
Ricki said:
Unfortunately I can't really develop for the iPhone solely. The project is aimed at engineers working on site so the mobile devices in question have to be pretty rugged and cheap and whilst the iPhone is a wonderful bit of kit it simply wouldn't last 2 seconds in the field.

Is there a particular problem associated with developing Java on a mobile platform? I was thinking (after suggestions on the "Laptops & PDAs" forum of purchasing an HP iPAQ 214 or similar to test the stuff out on.
Click to expand...

Just download java J2ME SDK and start coding using that. There is an emulator as well so you can test your code before you put it on the phone. It is basically a cut down version of the java libraries so a lot of things which are in J2SE are missing.

I used IntelliJ for developing and deploying J2ME applications but its a commercial IDE. My uni has a licence for it so I just use that. Im sure there will be a plugin/way to configure eclipse..

Tutorials wise: look on the sun website.. there are a ton of tutorials on J2ME on there.

It is quite simple though... typically you just archive your code as a .jar then execute that jar on your mobile device. This loads the J2ME virtual machine and the classloader loads your code.
 
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