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.
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.