"Java itself is awful, but the frameworks and tools make it fun."
How I did it: I put that this goal took me 5 years, but that was mostly from procrastination and not having a Java project at work.
If you know C or C++ or took some Computer Science classes, Java will come naturally.
Lessons & tips: The Java language itself is unarguably boring. It's basically C++ with no memory management to worry about.
The power of Java is:
- frameworks like Spring and JUnit
- tooling, like Maven and Eclipse
- wide industry use, so it's a valuable skill in the work force
- the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) make it possible for funner/newer/sexier languages like Groovy and JRuby to work at companies running Java (think of it as a trojan horse that is actually good)
If you want your mind blown, pick up a language with closures (like Ruby or Groovy) or a Functional language (Lisp, Haskell, Erlang).
Java
is a Chevy that will get you from point A to point B, and Groovy is
akin to a sports coupe that will get you there in style. In my
opinion, no language has ever equated to a Porsche, Ferrari, or McLaren
F1.
Resources: Start a web app on Google App Engine.
Save yourself some time and use Apache open source frameworks, especially Maven, their Commons package, Tomcat, Axis2, etc.
Don't waste your time on Java Certification, but instead find a problem and solve it.
Avoid Java on the desktop, such as the Swing framework. It's about the most tedious API in the programming universe. Oh, maybe not as tedious as EJB (Enterprise Java Beans version 2... EJB 3.0 looks much better).
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Apr 25, 09:33PM PDT
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