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A Beginner's Tutorial: where to start

 
blacksmith
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Dear Budi,

Welcome to JavaRanch!

Where does one start nowadays with a beginner's
tutorial?

What is the focus of your book?

Cheers,

Gian
 
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Gian Franco wrote:. . . Where does one start nowadays with a beginner's tutorial? . . .Gian

Try page 1
 
Gian Franco
blacksmith
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Gian Franco wrote:

Where does one start nowadays with a beginner's
tutorial?


The Official tutorials has new section on Java 7 features: http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/
 
Gian Franco
blacksmith
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Just to clarify...

The question was posed from the author's point of view...
where does one start to write, given the magnitude of
the Java platform...

Gian
 
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I personally would start with what an object is.
 
Mohamed Sanaulla
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And then going forward to explain the OOP paradigm before getting into the stuff related to Java. Most people fail to understand the OOP paradigm when they start learning Java.

I meant not to answer on behalf of the author, so we would like to hear from the author.
 
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Hi Gian,

--> where does one start to write, given the magnitude of the Java platform..

Good question. I did ask the same question myself when I was designing the first edition. I answered this at the beginning of the book:

Java is a mature programming language that is easy to learn. At the same time it is also a vast collection of technologies that are so diverse that beginners often don’t know where to start. If you are one of them, then this book is for you because it has been designed as a tutorial for novices.
As a beginner’s tutorial, this book does not teach you every Java technology there is. (It is impossible to cram everything into a single volume anyway, and that’s why most Java titles are focused on one technology.) Rather, this book covers the most important Java programming topics that you need to master to be able to learn other technologies yourself. Nonetheless this book is comprehensive that by fully understanding all the chapters and doing the exercises you’ll be able to perform an intermediate Java programmer’s daily tasks quite well.

This book offers all the three subjects that a professional Java programmer must be proficient in:

▪ Java as a programming language;
▪ Object-oriented programming (OOP) with Java;
▪ Java core libraries.

What makes structuring an effective Java course difficult is the fact that the three subjects are interdependent. On the one hand, Java is an OOP language, so its syntax is easier to learn if you already know about OOP. On the other hand, OOP features such as inheritance, polymorphism, and data encapsulation, are best taught if accompanied by real-world examples. Unfortunately, understanding real-world Java programs requires knowledge of the Java core libraries.

Because of such interdependence, the three main topics are not grouped into three isolated parts. Instead, chapters discussing a major topic and chapters teaching another are interwoven. For example, before explaining polymorphism, this book makes sure that you are familiar with certain Java classes so that real-world examples can be given. In addition, because a language feature such as generics cannot be explained effectively without the comprehension of a certain set of classes, it is covered after the discussion of the supporting classes.

There are also situations whereby a topic can be found in two or more places. For instance, the for statement is a basic language feature that should be discussed in an early chapter. However, for can also be used to iterate over a collection of objects, a feature that should only be given after the Collections Framework is taught. Therefore, for is first presented in Chapter 3, “Statements” and then revisited in Chapter 11, “The Collections Framework.”

Hope this answered your question. If you like you can download the first 198 pages of the book from here: http://books.brainysoftware.com/download/java7SampleChapters.pdf

Best,
Budi Kurniawan
 
Gian Franco
blacksmith
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Hello Budi,

It has thanks!

Kind regards,

Gian
 
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