Career Path Guidance

[Jim Mikael]

Hi masters,

I want to be a Java Software Developer. I just graduated and now will start to work. Primarily, I am a game developer in unity.
I am done reading Head First Java, I studied the core java. What should I study after that? Thanks in advance!

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch

I suggest you shou‍ld be writing as much code as possible. Also get somebody to check its style and design.

[Jim Mikael]

Should I study Servlets or Java EE then Spring Framework? Thanks!

[Tapas Chand]

Hi Jim,
As advised by Campbell, you shou‍ld be writing as much code as possible in core java first.
Then move to servlet and other J2EE things.

[Jim Mikael]

Thanks, do you have recommendations on where should I practice? I'm glad there's a lot of nice people here!

[Tapas Chand]

Not sure, but I think in Head First Java itself there are lot of exercises.

[Knute Snortum]

One thing you can do is pick a small project and start coding it.  You want to be a game programmer?  What about Tic Tac Toe (just to the screen at first)?  A non-game project could be an address book.  Resist the urge to add GUIs to your projects until you get basic programming down.

[Junilu Lacar]

IMO, after you've become familiar with the mechanics of the language you should start looking into principles. Read up on design principles, problem solving techniques, refactoring, testing, and other things you have to do as a developer. Developers don't just have to write code, they also have to analyze, design, organize, test, collaborate, etc. If you want to get a good start on a career in software development, it's best that you're at least aware of the other things you have to do besides write code and deal with technology. If you search these forums for book recommendations, you'll find quite a few good ones where you can start learning more holistically.

[Jim Mikael]

Thanks, so much help guys! You are all awesome! BTW Knute, I was a game developer, I did several android/pc games using unity. Junilu, thank you for the advice. You're right, I should study the principles deeper.