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Experienced programmer but new to Java seeking advice and tips

 
Greenhorn
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Greetings fellow developers!

I may take up a new position as a Java developer, but it's been nearly 7 years since I last did any programming in Java.

Therefore I need to refresh old Java knowledge and figure out what's new and whatnot.

To make my research more efficient and smoother I hope you guys can provide me with some tips regarding the following:

1. What are the best forums for reaching other developers, ask questions and share information?
2. Which blogs should I be reading?
3. What websites should I bookmark?
4. Which books should I acquire?
5. What tools and/or addons is a "must-have"?
6. What Java features, technologies, models, libraries should I focus on first?
6. Anything else?

My Java experience from earlier is fairly limited - I used VisualAge for Java and was coding backend mostly. No Java Servlets, no Eclipse, no Spring etc.

Currently I am most familiar with the MS Platform using .NET and C#.

In my new job I will be developing (using Java, JavaScript, Spring, Eclipse ++) systems for presenting and storing data through a web-interface - probably using some MVVM type architecture.

Any help is greatly appreciated - looking forward to getting back into Java again!

Stian
 
Java Cowboy
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Welcome to the Ranch!

About your first question: the JavaRanch forums ofcourse!

With regard to blogs: the Oracle blogs often contain interesting information about what's new with Java. The next version of Java, Java 7, is going to come out next month. I like to listen to podcasts, the two best Java podcasts are The Java Posse and The Java Spotlight (that last one is done by Oracle people).

Books: Effective Java is a must-read for every Java developer. If you're going to build scalable, multi-threaded systems, then Java Concurrency in Practice is a very good book.
 
Marshal
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Go through our book review pages. Learn about generics, about enums and the enhancements to threading introduced in Java5 (2004). For a general book about Java, I like Horstmann and Cornell.
Find one of my posts where I quote 3 websites about the equals method (Odersky, Lange and Bloch) and read them.
Bookmark, for example, the Java™ Language Specification (or try here if that link won't work :wink:), Java™ tutorials and API. If you have generics problems, try Googling Angelika Langer Java generics FAQ.

And congratulations on finding a good forum to ask your questions
 
Stian Danielsen
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Thanks a lot for the help guys! Gonna check out all the stuff you mentioned.

I know generics from C# so presumably it's not such a big step to get into it using Java.
 
Campbell Ritchie
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The C# chappies learnt from the mistakes made in Java™, including not implementing generics from the very start. So C# generics is implemented by reification and Java™ generics by erasure. So there are bound to be some subtle but important differences.
 
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My internet bookmarks include quite a lot of links, however, you have to search for those related to Java, because Mozilla FF does not filter exports to date.

Some books and URLs off the top of my head
J2EE Technical Documentation is available here as well.
Core Java Volume 1 and 2.
I find that I have to refer to the API while reading these books, particularly when reading beyond the beginners' topics.

Java Concurrency in Practice, and, Algorithms in Java are on my reading list as well, although I can't yet provide feedback on them.

 
Bartender
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Also at http://www.java-forums.org/new-java/45985-experienced-programmer-but-new-java-seeking-advice-tips.html

Stian, please BeForthrightWhenCrossPostingToOtherSites.
 
Stian Danielsen
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Darryl Burke wrote:Also at http://www.java-forums.org/new-java/45985-experienced-programmer-but-new-java-seeking-advice-tips.html

Stian, please BeForthrightWhenCrossPostingToOtherSites.



I'm sorry, I should have notified.
 
Darryl Burke
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And who should notify us about the third cross post?
 
Jesper de Jong
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Generics in Java work a little differently than in C#. In Java, they are implemented via type erasure, which I don't think is the case in C#. It's a bit complicated to explain here in a few sentences, but when you start programming with Java generics you'll at some moment notice that some things work in a different way than in C#.
 
With a little knowledge, a cast iron skillet is non-stick and lasts a lifetime.
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